人工智能如何改变健康素养和参与度

January 5, 2026Industry Report Ryan S. Daniels, CFA+1 312 364 8418rdaniels@williamblair.com Consumer-CentricHealthcare: 2026 UpdateHow AI Is Redefining theHealthcare Consumer Experience Jared Haase, CFA+1 312 364 5135jhaase@williamblair.com Matthew Mardula+1 312 364 5385mmardula@williamblair.com Contents Introduction.......................................................................................................................3Five Factors We Believe Will Drive Consumer-Centric Healthcare Over the Coming YearsFactor One: The High Cost of Healthcare in the U.S......................................................7Factor Two: Increased Availability of Healthcare Price and Quality Information....16Factor Three: More Financial and Quality Responsibility Borne byHealthcare Consumers........................................................................................25Factor Four: Health Insurers, Employers, and Consumers AreEmbracing Consumerism...................................................................................35Factor Five: Greater Use of HCIT Will Enable the Consumer-CentricHealthcare Revolution.........................................................................................43Summary and Investment Conclusions...........................................................................57Emerging Investment Themes...................................................................................58Emerging Investment Risks.......................................................................................59List of Public and Private Consumer-Centric Healthcare Companies........................59 Introduction In January 2005, we published the first of our continuing series of reports on the evolving role ofthe consumer in the U.S. healthcare market. The report, titledThe Power of Choice: On the Brink ofa Consumer Revolution in Health Care,provided our expectations for the most significant develop-ments in the healthcare marketplace over the coming years. More than two decades after publishing our inaugural report, our thesis remains largely intactand continues to unfold rapidly. We believe that a consumer-centric ecosystem is now an in-tegral part of the U.S. healthcare market, and the recent investments and strategic actions bymyriad industry leaders—both inside and outside the traditional healthcare landscape—appearto support our view. In this ecosystem, we believe that engaged and empowered consumers, intandem with disruptive healthcare technology and services providers, remain the key to solvingmany of healthcare’s woes, particularly the unsustainably high cost and mixed quality of health-care in the U.S. Our 2026 report also comes at an interesting time for the sector, as healthcare costs are hit-ting record levels and as both payers and providers are facing tremendous margin pressure.We also believe innovations in artificial intelligence are set to revolutionize the consumer experi-ence in healthcare—increasing price transparency, predicting care needs in advance, driving con-sumers to the highest-value providers, shifting the site of care delivery to virtual and home-basedvenues, and promoting consumer empowerment. And we believe the largest players in the space are laser focused on this trend, not merely as aninvestment requirement, but increasingly as a matter of survival. In our view, this is driving massive adoption of AI in the healthcare marketplace; for example, Ope-nAI’s December 2025State of Enterprise AIreportnoted that the healthcare sector was experienc-ing the second-fastest growth of AI use in any industry (behind only the technology sector), withtotal users increasing eightfold year-over-year in 2025 alone. To this end, we believe a recent comment in UnitedHealth’swhite paper(Rising expectationsamong health care consumers: How to lead the consumer-centric transformation) on consumerismis particularly insightful: The transformation to consumer-centric health care is not a matter of if, or even when, butrather how organizations will evolve to meet the moment. The economic forces related tohealth care consumer spending, workforce challenges, value-based care, and regulatorypressures make it inevitable. The good news is that there are many opportunities to take a step forward on the coregoals of increasing access to care and information. Technological developments are cre-ating new opportunities to meet the need. Health leaders who actively pursue advance-ments in this direction will be in a stronger position to gain a competitive edge while alsoadvancing their mission. Key industry leaders agree that using technology and creating a digital-first consumer ex-perience are key to long-term survival in the healthcare ecosystem. DuringUnitedHealth’sfirst quarter 2025 earnings call, the company’s CEO stated the followingwhen discussing the future of U.S. healthcare: It means making healthcare easier to navigate. We’re enhancing digital tools for co