The Consumer Health Wave is Surging While Clinicians Are Drowning
From Dr. Google to Dr. GPT
Years ago, the biggest frustration for many clinicians was print outs that patients brought in after they had consulted with Dr. Google about their condition. Countless hours were spent trying to understand the patients’ questions, concerns, and misinformation and then trying to get to a space of informed shared clinical decision making.
Over the past decade, the healthcare industry has experienced a profound shift: Patients have become even more active participants in their health journeys, and now they’re armed with even more data than ever before. Fueled by access to digital tools—from wearables and symptom checkers to telehealth platforms and AI-powered apps—today’s consumers don’t just have printed handouts. And patients didn’t necessarily wait to talk to the physician before they took action via direct-to-consumer (DTC) testing and care providers.
By the time they arrive at the physician’s office, patients often have multimodal data (structured and unstructured), expectations, and a mindset shaped more by Amazon and Apple than by traditional health systems. It’s not uncommon for a 15-minute primary care visit to turn into a 45-minute discussion about sleep scores and ChatGPT differential diagnoses.
This shift is empowering for patients, but it’s also reshaping the clinical frontline—overwhelming, challenging, but also potentially exciting clinicians who see themselves as the best line of defense against medical misinformation and charlatans.
Patients Are Coming in With Data But Not Always Context
It’s increasingly common for physicians and nurses to encounter patients presenting with data from their Apple Watch, Oura ring, or DTC continuous glucose monitor. While this data can be valuable, it often lacks clinical context. Providers must now balance validating patient concerns while ensuring the data doesn’t lead to misdiagnosis or unnecessary anxiety, testing, or treatment. Also, the data is often not integrated into the clinicians’ medical documentation (EHR) systems, so clinicians need to import or recreate the data to explain the decision-making.
The burden of more data to wade through while also having to re-record and explain the data compounds the operational and cognitive load that many clinicians experience day in and day out. Worse yet, with so much data, how do you know what is clinically relevant versus a red herring, and how much is the clinician responsible for acting on data gathered through commercially available products and services?
The challenge: Clinicians are already drowning in the amount of work they need to do in order to provide high-quality care for their patients, so sorting significant signals from noise without adding more time further stresses already overloaded visits.
Clinical Judgment vs. AI-Powered Health Advice
Patients are bringing in differential diagnoses generated by ChatGPT or outputs from symptom checker apps like K Health or Ada. Many expect confirmation or a second opinion. This can foster engagement, but it also risks undermining clinical expertise if the tech is seen as more authoritative. Physicians spend years of their lives on medical education and training, not just to memorize facts. Their training blends science with hands-on experience to sharpen diagnostic acumen.
Truly talented physicians aren't textbooks. They are the embodiment of scientific detectives wrapped in human empathy and holistic understanding. Their years of experience and deductive reasoning talent should never be commoditized or marginalized just because an AI bot can also create a list of candidate conditions and recommendations.
There is a place for machine learning and AI-driven insights that would assist and accelerate the speed of correct, efficient, and effective diagnosis and treatment, but neither ML nor AI would ever understand the holistic patient, their family members, caregivers, socioeconomic/religious/cultural/ethnic considerations and be able to deliver the warmth and understanding that a gifted and sensitive clinician could—a clinician who went into healthcare to take care of patients for the betterment of humankind.
The challenge: Reasserting the value of clinical reasoning and human empathy while incorporating patient-facing AI as a collaborative tool, not a competitor.
The Rise in Digital Communication Demands
With the normalization of purpose-built, asynchronous care—via patient portals, secure messaging, and virtual follow-ups—many providers are spending more time “off-visit.” This work often goes uncompensated and unstructured, leading to increasing administrative burden and burnout.
As I mentioned in my last post, clinicians are expected to be more than just clinical experts. They also need to be health coaches and digital experts who are informed about the latest in evidence-based clinical medicine plus everything healthcare adjacent: Over-the-counter options (such as vitamins, minerals, and supplements), third-party service providers (such as Hims/Ro, Omada Health, Lyra Health, Maven Clinic, etc), every pharmacy option available (in-person, mail delivery, and commercial options like Amazon and Mark Cuban’s Cost Plus), and every prescription medication advertised directly to consumers with the tagline “Ask your physician.”
The challenge: Finding sustainable models for digital care delivery that support clinicians, not just patients.
Shifting Roles for Health Systems
Healthcare systems now need to treat digital health as a relevant and potentially clinically significant data channel. That means integrating wearable data into the EHR, adapting workflows to remote monitoring, and training clinicians on how to interpret consumer-generated health information (CGHI) and incorporate this data into their clinical decision making workflows.
The balance is knowing when the data should versus should not impact patient care. Does the blood oxygen data from a smartwatch help if the patient still has to have a sleep study to diagnose obstructive sleep apnea correctly, or did it lead to overutilization and more harm than good when our limited resources are wasted on unnecessary testing and treatment?
The opportunity: Rethinking care models to extend reach, improve population health, and reduce unnecessary utilization, if systems can adapt fast enough.
What Providers Want from the Next Wave of Digital Health
While consumer health tools have empowered patients, they’ve often marginalized clinicians and left them out of the loop.
For the next generation of solutions to succeed, they must:
Support—not replace—clinical decision-making
Integrate seamlessly with existing workflows
Respect clinician time and reimbursement structures
Prioritize equity and access, not just convenience
As one nurse leader put it: “I don’t need more alerts or dashboards. I need less time clicking and more time caring.”
Meeting in the Middle: Collaboration is Key
The future of healthcare lies in collaboration, not competition, between patients, providers, and technology. As consumers continue to embrace digital tools, the burden shouldn't fall solely on frontline clinicians to bridge the gap.
Instead, systems must invest in human-centered design, provider-inclusive technology, and policy change that aligns incentives across the board.
Because the question isn’t whether healthcare will go digital; it’s whether providers will be supported as it does.
👩⚕️ Final Thoughts
As a healthcare leader or system strategist, the takeaway is clear: Adaptation must be intentional. Consumer-driven health is here, and contrary to popular belief, clinicians love technology and innovation. After all, they’re science people. That said, no one (clinicians included) would relish being told that the latest innovation has undermined their value as a professional and as a person who has dedicated their lives to the betterment of their fellow humans.
Innovation and scientific discovery have always been at the heart of medicine. We need to ensure clinicians are empowered, not overwhelmed, by those innovations. If not, there won’t be any clinicians left standing—no one to diagnose, treat, and emotionally care for us when we are old, sick, and at our most vulnerable.
