Healthcare Has Been Benchmarking Against the Wrong Industry

What the Next Billion-Dollar Startups Reveal About the Future of Health

By Stevi Carr, Founder & CEO, WISe Wellness Guild | Co-Founder, WellNXT

Function Health

Every year I look forward to Forbes' Next Billion-Dollar Startups list—not because I'm trying to predict the next unicorn, but because it offers something far more valuable- it offers clues.

Not because I'm trying to predict the next unicorn. Because I'm looking for signals.

Where is capital flowing? Which problems are founders convinced are worth solving? What behaviors are consumers embracing? More importantly, what expectations are these companies creating that every industry—including healthcare—will eventually be measured against?

The startups themselves may or may not become billion-dollar companies. That's almost beside the point.

The real value lies in what they collectively reveal about the direction of the market.

This year's list points to a shift that healthcare leaders, academic medical centers, investors, employers, and wellness organizations can no longer afford to ignore:

Healthcare has spent decades benchmarking itself against other healthcare organizations. The next decade belongs to organizations willing to benchmark themselves against the best experiences anywhere.

That's a fundamentally different strategic question.

Patients don't experience life in industries. They don't compare the scheduling experience at one health system to another. They compare it to ordering from Amazon. They compare it to the simplicity of Apple, the personalization of Netflix, the responsiveness of Uber, and increasingly, the insights they receive from platforms like Oura or WHOOP.

Every remarkable experience quietly resets expectations for the next one.

Healthcare inherits every one of those expectations.

Four Signals Healthcare Leaders Shouldn't Ignore

1. The Future of Health Is Consumer-Led

One of the most interesting themes across this year's startups is that artificial intelligence is quietly disappearing from the story. Not because AI matters less. Because consumers don't buy technology. They buy better experiences.

Take OpenEvidence, one of the fastest-growing clinical decision support platforms. Physicians aren't embracing it because it's powered by AI. They're embracing it because it helps them find trusted medical evidence in seconds instead of minutes, giving them something far more valuable than another digital tool—more time with patients. That's an important distinction.

Healthcare has spent the past two years asking, "How do we implement AI?" Consumers are asking something entirely different. "Why does this still take so long?" Technology itself is rarely the differentiator. Reducing friction is.

The organizations that lead won't necessarily have the most sophisticated AI. They'll be the ones where technology becomes nearly invisible, allowing trust, empathy, and human connection to become more visible.

2. Health Is Moving Upstream

Perhaps the most fascinating trend isn't technological at all. It's geographical. Health is moving beyond hospitals, clinics, and physician offices into homes, communities, workplaces, schools, destinations, and everyday life.

Companies like Function Healthare helping people understand their health long before they become patients. Abby Care is expanding access by recognizing and supporting family caregivers, acknowledging that some of healthcare's most important moments happen around the kitchen table rather than inside an exam room. Ossium Health is advancing regenerative medicine, pushing the boundaries of what's possible through cellular therapies. Eucalyptus Health is redesigning chronic disease management around the consumer rather than the clinic.

At first glance, these companies appear to be solving unrelated problems. Together, they're telling a much bigger story. The future isn't organized around healthcare. It's organized around health.

Consumers are investing in prevention, recovery, sleep, nutrition, longevity, mental wellbeing, and community years before they enter the traditional care system, and that should change how we think about strategy. Wellness isn't becoming a service line- it's becoming infrastructure.

Abby Health

3. Trust Is Becoming the Competitive Advantage

Technology is becoming increasingly accessible. Trust isn't.

One company that particularly caught my attention was Agentio. On the surface, it's a platform that helps brands identify and partner with trusted creators. Look deeper, and it's really building infrastructure for credibility—using AI to connect organizations with authentic voices people already know and trust.

Healthcare has something important to learn from that. The future won't belong to organizations that simply produce more content. It will belong to those that cultivate trusted relationships.

Increasingly, physicians, researchers, patients, caregivers, and wellness experts are becoming educators, creators, and community builders in their own right. The challenge isn't communicating more- it's creating ecosystems where evidence, lived experience, and human connection reinforce one another.

That's precisely why we created WISe Wellness Guild and WellNXT—to convene organizations that rarely occupy the same room but increasingly share the same future.

Innovation no longer happens within industries. It happens between them.

4. The Best Ideas Are Coming From Everywhere

Perhaps the greatest mistake healthcare leaders can make is assuming the next breakthrough will come from healthcare alone.

Hospitality has mastered belonging. Retail- convenience. Behavioral science - motivation. Consumer technology - personalization. Community organizations - trust. Healthcare- science.

The organizations that define the next decade will integrate all of those capabilities into experiences that feel seamless, human, and deeply connected.

That's why I continue to look beyond healthcare for inspiration.

Apple has taught us that simplicity is a strategic advantage. Amazon has normalized convenience. Oura and WHOOP have transformed personal health data into everyday behavior. Canyon Ranch and CIVANA Wellness Resort & Spa have demonstrated that hospitality can become a model for wellbeing. Lake Nona has shown what's possible when an entire community is intentionally designed around health. None of these organizations are competing in the same category. Yet every one of them is quietly influencing what people expect from health.

The Real Opportunity

Healthcare doesn't have an innovation problem. It has an integration problem. The knowledge, technology and behavioral science already exists. The opportunity lies in bringing them together differently.

Every generation of leaders inherits a defining strategic question. For the last several decades, that question has largely been: "How do we improve healthcare?"

I believe the defining question of the next decade is different- '“how do we design a healthier society?”

Those aren't the same challenge. One begins inside institutions, and the other begins with people. The companies featured on Forbes' list may never become your direct competitors, but they are already shaping what your patients, clinicians, employees, guests, investors, and communities will expect from you tomorrow.

That's why I don't read the list looking for unicorns- I read it looking for signals. Because the future of health won't be invented by healthcare alone- it will be shaped by the leaders willing to look beyond it.

Join the Conversation

If you were building a health system, employer strategy, wellness destination, or community from scratch today, which industries would you study first—and why?

I'd love to hear your perspective. The future of health will be built through conversations that cross traditional boundaries, and I believe the most transformative ideas are still waiting to be discovered at those intersections.

Stevi Gable Carr

About the Author

Stevi Carr is an executive healthcare strategist, executive coach, and founder focused on helping organizations navigate the convergence of healthcare, consumer behavior, technology, and wellness. Through WISe Wellness Guild and WellNXT, she partners with health systems, Fortune 500 companies, investors, entrepreneurs, and destinations to build healthier organizations, stronger brands, and more human-centered experiences.

Her work has been featured in Forbes, Fortune, and Entrepreneur, and she regularly advises executive teams on innovation, physician leadership, organizational transformation, and the future of whole-person health.

Connect with Stevi on LinkedIn or learn more at wisewellnessguild.com and wellnxt.com.