From AI Insight to Real Care: Why Healthcare Needs a New Execution Layer
Wheel’s VP of Marketing held a conversation with the CEOs of Wheel and b.well Connected Health on what it means to close the gap between health insight and real-world care
Healthcare has entered a new phase.
Patients are no longer starting their journey with a provider. They’re starting with AI tools, health apps, wearables, and consumer platforms that help them understand what might be happening and what to do next.
But there’s still a critical gap.
Insight is easier than ever. Acting on it is not.
In light of our recent Wheel + b.well partnership announcement, I sat down with CEOs Michelle Davey and Kristen Valdes to talk about why healthcare continues to break at the moment of action, and what it will take to fix it.
Q1: What’s changed in how patients engage with healthcare in 2026?
Kristen Valdes:
Patients are bringing more context into their healthcare decisions than ever before. They’re connecting records, tracking their health through devices, and increasingly using AI to interpret what’s happening.
The expectation has shifted. People don’t just want access to information. They expect it to lead somewhere.
Michelle Davey:
Exactly. Patients are showing up more informed, but the system isn’t designed to respond to that level of context. Clinicians are still operating with incomplete information. The important contextual data and historical patient data is "locked" in the black box of traditional healthcare and the experience often resets at every step.
So you end up with this disconnect. The patient has context. The system doesn’t know how to use it.
Q2: Where does the healthcare system break down today?
Michelle Davey:
It breaks between insight and action.
You can pull a record. You can generate a recommendation. But that doesn’t mean the patient actually gets care. It doesn’t mean they understand the cost, can access a provider, fill a prescription, or know what to do next.
Healthcare still fragments at the exact moment it needs to come together.
Kristen Valdes:
The harder problem now isn't data access, it's orchestration. Taking everything you know about a person and using it in the moment to guide them to the right next step, whether that's a care option inside their employer's app, a pharmacy interaction, or a physician visit. That's the layer b.well operates in. We give organizations the infrastructure and insights to populate care options directly inside the experiences their consumers are already using.
A simple example illustrates the gap. A patient uses an AI tool to explore symptoms and is guided toward a treatment. But when they try to act, they hit friction. A provider visit is delayed or unavailable. The system doesn’t have their full medication history. The provider lacks context. The pharmacy pathway is unclear.
What should be a seamless next step becomes a fragmented experience.
Q3: Why hasn’t this problem been solved yet?
Kristen Valdes:
Because it requires depth across very different disciplines, such as consumer experience, identity and consent, normalized longitudinal data, clinically meaningful AI, and the ability to embed all of that inside the experiences consumers already use. Most organizations have built one or two of those. Very few have built the full stack in a way that's ready to power someone else's consumer experience.
That's the work we've been doing at b.well for years, and it's why a partnership like this is possible now. The infrastructure is mature enough to plug a national clinical network into it.
Michelle Davey:
The stakes have never been higher. You’re dealing with clinical workflows, prescribing, and real patient outcomes. You can’t just bolt something onto existing infrastructure.
That’s why so many experiences stop at “here are your options” instead of actually helping the patient move forward.
Q4: What does it actually take to move from health insight to real care?
Michelle Davey:
It starts with the ability to close that loop.
It’s taking everything we know about a patient, their history, signals, and intent, and turning it into a clear next step. Then actually delivering that care and tracking what happens next.
That’s what turns a moment into a journey.
Kristen Valdes:
For us, the work has always been about building the infrastructure that turns health context into action inside our clients' consumer experiences. We unify the data, generate the insights, and orchestrate the right next step.
Physician access is one of those next steps, and an important one. Through our infrastructure and insights, we can connect a consumer to Wheel's national network of physicians and have them served via telehealth without ever leaving the experience they're in, orchestration connecting into a best-in-class clinical network.
Q5: Why is this happening now?
Kristen Valdes:
The front door of healthcare has changed. AI platforms, retailers, and consumer health companies are all becoming entry points into care. They’re generating demand and engagement, but they don’t have the infrastructure to fulfill it.
Michelle Davey:
Everyone is racing toward more personalized, action-oriented healthcare. But the infrastructure hasn’t kept up. That’s why you’re seeing this gap so clearly right now. The point of care is moving closer to what is comfortable for the consumer.
Q6: Who does this matter most for?
Michelle Davey:
It’s broad. Retailers want to connect pharmacy and care. Life sciences companies want to support patients and measure outcomes. AI platforms want to move from answers to action.
Everyone is trying to solve a version of the same problem.
Kristen Valdes:
The common thread is this: once you understand the patient, what do you do next?
That’s the question we’re answering together.
Conclusion: Why operationalizing AI is our industry’s most urgent duty
James Coates: What stood out in this conversation was the sense of urgency.
Healthcare has made enormous progress in generating insight. Patients now have access to more information, more tools, and more guidance than ever before.
But the system still struggles to convert that momentum into action.
That’s the gap. And increasingly, it’s the one that matters most.
The next phase of healthcare innovation will be driven by those who can operationalize these insights. Who can take a moment of intent and turn it into care, pharmacy access, and measurable outcomes.
For the first time, that path is becoming real.
Wheel and b.well just partnered to connect consumer health data and AI insight to clinical action and care. Learn more.