2025 Impact and Direction: RockHealth.org’s Annual Letter

The end of every year offers a moment to reflect on how the healthcare landscape has shifted. In 2025, gaps in access, trust, and affordability persisted—but we were continually inspired by innovators building technologies to better meet the needs of patients and providers.

Our annual Rock Health Innovation Maturity Curve analysis highlighted areas of meaningful traction, including growing consumer interest in personalized preventive health insights as longevity solutions and wearables gained momentum. Affordability pressures pushed cost transparency and consumer-directed spending further into focus. AI became increasingly embedded across clinical workflows and infrastructure, even as mental health use cases underscored the need for stronger safeguards. Taken together, these shifts signal a digital health ecosystem moving with greater intention—seeking balance between speed and trust, innovation and equity.

Centering communities across our breakthrough areas

The needs of underserved patients and communities continue to anchor our work, shaping our focus on three breakthrough areas: primary care, women+ health, and youth mental health. This year, progress came not just from developing technologies, but from clinicians, founders, funders, patients, and communities coming together to share insight and co-create what comes next.

Primary care is primed for technology to improve the experience of providers and patients alike, and our work this year explored the development of responsible innovation. In partnership with the American Academy of Family Physicians, we surveyed 1,300 family physicians and other primary care clinicians and found that 92% already use digital health tools at work, with about half having used AI. Yet most reported limited influence over the AI tools available in their practices. User buy-in can make or break the trajectory of new technologies—for AI to transform primary care, practicing physicians need to be engaged early and often. The culmination of this work outlined a shared vision for responsible AI integration and a practical roadmap for stakeholders across the ecosystem to take action.

Women+ health innovation has long been a flash point—while women+ are typically the “chief medical officers” of their households and drive 80% of healthcare spending, their own health and care needs have historically been overlooked. Our latest research on digital health consumer adoption found that more than half of women use virtual care and digital health tools, but their engagement is nuanced. For example, women are more likely than men to seek health information online, yet less likely to trust what they find. As digital health becomes increasingly embedded in daily life, improving women+ health outcomes will depend on meeting women where they are and designing solutions that reflect their realities and priorities.

Youth mental health remains an untapped opportunity for digital health to expand access to care. Our research has found that 61% of young adults with a mental health condition are tracking their wellbeing, and that Black and Latinx young adults are more likely to try online therapy than their peers. There is clear demand for digital health solutions to provide affordable, scalable, and personalized support that aligns with how young people communicate and seek care. If digital health tools can support earlier interventions and deliver culturally responsive, age-appropriate resources, the sector has a real chance at making youth mental health care more inclusive and effective.

Across these focus areas, convening remained central to our impact. In 2025, we welcomed more than 1,500 attendees across Rock Health events—from the Digital Health CEO Summit at the New York Stock Exchange to our 14th annual Rock Health Summit. We celebrated 50 new leaders through our Top 50 in Digital Health Awards and supported nine new Innovation Fellows building solutions aligned with our breakthrough areas. Just as importantly, we listened—to thousands of clinicians and consumers—using those insights to help guide the field forward.

Building upon the foundation

This work is only possible because of the support of our board, partners, funders, sponsors, and community. Thank you for your dedication and belief in the promise of healthcare innovation.

As we look toward 2026, we’re excited to keep building—expanding our Equitable Investments Initiative, exploring a new new focus on responsible AI development, and continuing to convene visionary leaders dedicated to these efforts. We also look forward to the release of Massively Better Healthcare, a new book by Rock Health founder Halle Tecco, in February.

We hope you’ll continue walking alongside us—whether by sponsoring or attending our convenings, partnering with us to advance solutions across youth mental health, primary care, and women’s health, or engaging with the ideas shaping the future of healthcare. We also hope you’ll join us at the next Rock Health Summit on Wednesday, October 14, 2026, in San Francisco.

Thank you for being a part of this work. Wishing you a joyful close to 2025 and an energizing start to the year ahead.

With appreciation,
Katie Drasser

Rock Health accelerates innovation at the nexus of technology and healthcare through an early-stage venture fund, an enterprise strategy group, and a non-profit advancing equity-centered change. RockHealth.org is our non-profit that catalyzes breakthrough innovation to make healthcare massively better for all.