we get it, AI is great. But what are you actually BUILDING in healthcare?

I'm a healthcare investor who regularly puts off going to the doctor. Why? Because going to see someone costs me money. I don't have a PCP (thanks UCSF urgent care down the street for supplementing), so finding the right fit feels like a burden every time. And as a woman, most of the time, going means agreeing to some level of pain and discomfort.

And this is coming from someone who lives in San Francisco, has good healthcare coverage, and is knowledgeable about why you should be proactive, not reactive when it comes to your health. How on earth must somone without these resources feel?

I've been watching healthcare from the investment side since 2019, and the AI boom highlights a common challenge I see for early-stage healthcare startups: ignore the trends and focus on solving real problems. While VCs throw money at the latest AI scribe or yet another telehealth platform enabling traditional services, the real disruption I'm excited about are solutions that challenge the rules of engagement with the US healthcare system.

Some things I've been thinking about recently:

First: Consumers actually owning their health records.

This isn't just about MyChart giving you access to view your labs. I'm talking about true ownership - where you control who sees what, when, and how your health data gets used. The regulatory landscape finally caught up in 2024. Washington's My Health My Data Act isn't just another privacy law - it's the beginning of consumers having real power over their health information.

Here's what gets me excited: families are drowning in fragmented health records across multiple providers, insurance companies, and random apps. Parents managing kids' care, adult children coordinating elderly parent care, individuals trying to piece together their own health story across decades of providers. The current system is broken, and fixing it is a massive opportunity. Hard? Yes. Integration hell? Absolutely. Worthwhile? 100%

The healthcare system is reactive. Consumers are proactive.

Second: Enabling providers to practice at the top of their license.

Everyone's building tools to make doctors more efficient at documentation. But efficiency isn't the problem - utilization is. We have nurse practitioners spending half their time on prior authorizations instead of seeing patients. Specialists doing routine follow-ups that a well-trained medical assistant could handle. Pharmacists buried in insurance paperwork instead of providing clinical consultations (let alone using their degrees to prescribe for basic conditions like strep throat, ear infections, etc).

The opportunity isn't automating existing workflows - it's completely restructuring care delivery so every provider works at the highest level of their training and capabilities. Think team-based care platforms that automatically route patients to the right level of provider. Technology that lets a single physician effectively supervise multiple mid-level providers across different locations. Systems that turn routine check-ins into rich data collection that actually informs care decisions.

This isn't about making doctors faster at clicking buttons. It's about unlocking millions of hours of wasted clinical expertise and redirecting it toward actual patient care. The startups winning here aren't selling software - they're selling completely new care delivery models enabled by technology.

But it's not enough to just automate or digitize an existing workflow; how can you change the standard of care? How can you personalize it so that it's relevant and hyper-specific for the individual?

Third: Completely rethinking when and how we engage with healthcare.

The best healthcare startups aren't trying to digitize the existing system - they're building entirely new models. Direct primary care that costs $55/month with no insurance hassles. Aging-in-place technology that keeps seniors healthy at home instead of warehousing them in facilities. Women's health platforms that treat menopause as seriously as we treat heart disease.

When, how, and if people should engage in the traditional system is up for grabs. But here's what really excites me: startups that are fundamentally changing standards of care, not just delivery methods.

Take continuous glucose monitoring - originally for diabetics, now being used by healthy people to optimize metabolic health before problems develop. Or companies doing comprehensive metabolic panels every quarter instead of waiting for annual physicals to catch problems. Genetic testing that's shifting from "let's see what diseases you might get" to "here's your personalized nutrition and exercise plan."

The most interesting companies are asking: What if we could prevent heart disease instead of just treating it better? What if mental health was as routine to monitor as blood pressure? What if we caught cancer at the cellular level instead of waiting for tumors? What if we didn't need primary care and instead enabled people to focus on the specialty care they actually need?

These aren't incremental improvements to existing care pathways - they're completely new standards for what good healthcare looks like. And they're being built outside the traditional system because the traditional system's incentives don't align with providing the best care. They align with maximizing profit margin and suffer from bloated admin overhead.

what I really really want:

I want to see startups that understand three things:

1. Consumers are done being passive participants in their healthcare. They want control, transparency, and convenience. Build for that.
2. Healthcare workers are burning out because the technology works against them, not for them. The best solutions make providers more effective, not more efficient at clicking buttons.
3. The biggest opportunities are in unsexy markets where technology adoption is 10-20 years behind other industries.

The startups I'm most excited about aren't trying to be the "Uber for healthcare." They're building infrastructure that makes healthcare work better for the people who use it - patients, families, and providers.

Sounds like you? Book some time with me here: https://calendly.com/abbie-outlander/dial-disrupt

segments I'm excited about right now

Let me be specific about where I see the biggest opportunities:

Women's health is exploding. We're talking about a $60 billion market that received record $2.6 billion in funding in 2024. But here's what most investors miss: it's not just about fertility apps. Menopause care is projected to hit $24 billion by 2030. One billion women will enter menopause by 2025. That's not niche - that's half the population dealing with a massive health transition that traditional healthcare completely ignores. And thats just for one condition.

Elder care is a $1+ trillion market that everyone talks about but no one actually builds for properly. 92% of adults want to age at home, but we keep building solutions for nursing homes. The companies winning here are building technology that keeps people independent longer - remote monitoring, AI-powered health analytics, social connection platforms. I'll even throw in solutions which support urban development int this category, because as we've seen time and time again, living in urban places with high walkability isn't just good for maintaining social relationships and making your life easier, its good for longevity.

Consumer health hit $360 billion because people are tired of waiting for the healthcare system to work for them. They're paying out of pocket for convenience, transparency, and actual service. Amazon Health Clinic expanded to all 50 states for a reason.

why now?

Healthcare funding hit $23 billion in 2024, up 15%. But here's the interesting part - it's not all going to the usual suspects anymore. Geographic funding shifted from West Coast to East Coast leadership. Early-stage deals dominated. The mega-rounds are shrinking.

What this tells me: there's still room for new players who understand that healthcare's problems aren't technology problems - they're business model problems.

The regulatory environment is finally creating real opportunities. The 21st Century Cures Act penalties can hit $1 million per violation for blocking data access. Epic covers 50%+ of US patients, but huge gaps remain for consumer-controlled platforms. The Personal Health Record market is heading toward $21.7 billion by 2033.

bottom line

Healthcare is an $4.5 trillion market where 75% of spending goes to chronic diseases that we could largely prevent with better tools and models. Women drive 80% of healthcare decisions but get 4% of R&D funding. Rural communities have 12% of physicians serving 61 million Americans.

These aren't statistics - they're opportunities.

If you're building something that puts consumers in control of their health data, integrates technology into healthcare's outdated processes, or creates entirely new models for how we stay healthy, I want to hear from you.

The healthcare system isn't going to fix itself. But the right startups, with the right approaches, in the right markets? They might just fix it for us.

After all, if you're not investing in solutions for 51% of the population (plus their families, plus everyone who will eventually need care), what exactly are you investing in?