Scaling virtual health: developing a roadmap for success

Healthcare today finds itself at an inflection point. This is thanks to the intersection of three quite powerful forces:

1. Public health systems are under sustained pressure. Demand has far outpaced the availability of clinicians, while budgets are tightening as governments face competing national priorities – defence and security, climate adaptation, social care and rising debt costs.

2. People have become active co-pilots of their lives and expect the same in health. Subscription models and on-demand services have normalised convenience, transparency and personalisation. Patients no longer want to be passengers in their care; they want agency, continuity and clear next steps.

3. Technology, especially AI, is enabling the shift. Virtual-first pathways, at-home diagnostics, remote monitoring, ambient scribing and decision-support are moving us from digitising forms to redesigning workflows end-to-end. Ten years ago, we began digitising paperwork; now we’re digitising the actual work.

The shifts noted above show how change is inevitable. And as the CEO and founder of HealthHero, I’ve seen first-hand the positive impact of virtual health in improving patient outcomes and overall wellbeing, delivering a more personalised and efficient patient experience and a reduced burden on the NHS.

The benefits of virtual health are laid bare in a recent report, Health status in the era of digital transformation and sustainable economic development. The benefits include:

As our lives moved further online post-COVID, it is time that healthcare met those shifting demands.

However, challenges of how to scale virtual health remain and were well explored in another report, Frontiers in Digital Health. The paper points to disconnected patient records, an absence of joined-up thinking across government, a lack of patient confidence, proper funding for public health services and unreliable internet connectivity.

But as the adage goes: “With challenge comes great opportunity”. I’m ambitious about what good healthcare can look like, not just tomorrow but in 10 years’ time. The challenges aren’t insurmountable, but businesses like HealthHero can’t overcome them in silos. I’m excited to be in Davos in January to meet with other healthcare providers, governments and their agencies to discuss how we can work together to develop and implement a practical roadmap to scale virtual health.

Patient confidence is of course pivotal to virtual health success. While in-person exams are sometimes essential, often virtual care can safely triage and direct people to the right next step, therefore easing pressure on a healthcare system, while maintaining patient trust.

At HealthHero, for example, we deliver this through a streamlined, user-friendly platform built for patients and clinicians alike. To earn trust, patients must feel prioritised and clinicians must feel confident in the system. To succeed at scale, virtual health must make it effortless for patients to say “yes” to the next step and cut admin for clinicians. Across the journey, AI acts as a clinician co-pilot: triaging people to the right service first time, drafting accurate consultation notes – known as ambient scribing - summarising records so nothing is missed, and standardising pathway steps from eligibility and triage through booking and follow-up. Crucially, AI supports clinicians. It never replaces clinical accountability and is used under rigorous safety, regulatory and data-protection governance.

The other key element is diagnostic accuracy, meaning the platform that virtual health providers use is critical. Yes, virtual health is changing how we interact, but the human element isn’t – and shouldn’t be – lost. Automation and AI should handle as much admin as possible so clinicians can focus on people, while shared records reduce variability in care and improve patient safety. All under robust clinical governance.

Ideally? In 10 years’ time – if not earlier - patients will feel like the system finally knows them and clinicians will feel like someone has their back.

In the UK, the NHS faces significant difficulties in overcoming backlogs, with many patients frustrated at long waiting times to get a GP appointment or having to battle the ‘8am rush’ when GP practices make limited appointments that day available. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough clinical hours to meet the demand, with the UK’s nearly 30,000 GPs responsible for an average of more than 2,000 patients each.

This isn’t sustainable.

Virtual healthcare has a significant role to play in addressing this, in both the private and public health systems. It unlocks clinical hours across GP and allied services, from mental health to ADHD support and weight management, giving people faster access, including outside traditional hours for primary care and condition management.

It also eases pressure on Accident and Emergency (A&E) departments and reduces hospital visits for chronic-condition management. And by triaging through advice lines and ambulance support, virtual health helps prioritise emergencies and redirect people from services they don’t need.

I have a vision for a healthcare system that is more efficient, equitable and patient-centric. As business leaders, we have a moral imperative to work with governments and public healthcare services to deliver the natural evolution of clinical care: a fully integrated out-of-hospital, next-generation health system – that supercharges efficiency thanks to safely governed AI, while keeping care human where it counts.

The perfect public-private partnership should deliver a virtual healthcare system that streamlines clinical workflows, improves responses to chronic health conditions, focuses on preventive health, builds resilience into public healthcare systems, and marries digital expertise and the human experience to deliver better outcomes for patients.

As we prepare for the 2026 Annual Meeting, I look forward to outlining my manifesto for a digital healthcare revolution with patient outcomes at its heart.