Health tech companies Wheel and b.well Connected Health are partnering to offer turnkey infrastructure for next-generation AI-first virtual care.
AI-first healthcare experiences and consumer-centered care models are driving innovation in healthcare. Consumer health data is widespread and embedded in daily life, with information available from apps, wearables, devices and medical records. At the same time, retailers and pharmacies are becoming care access points, while life sciences companies are going direct-to-consumers. And the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is pushing forward initiatives to open up patients' access to health data.
Wheel's partnership with b.well gives AI-native companies, retailers, life sciences companies, payers, health systems and consumer health brands a faster, more complete way to compete in the consumer-driven healthcare race, according to the two companies.
B.well’s platform provides consumer-authorized health record access, consent, identity, patient matching, access infrastructure and open standards-based APIs. Over the past eight years, Wheel has built an AI-first platform for scalable virtual care programs and provides the clinical delivery layer, including virtual care, clinician network operations, prescribing, patient support and pharmacy workflows.
By connecting their capabilities, the two companies can close the loop from data to care, Kristen Valdes, founder and CEO of b.well Connected Health, said.
"Today,Health tech companies Wheel and b.well Connected Health are partnering to offer turnkey infrastructure for next-generation AI-first virtual care.
AI-first healthcare experiences and consumer-centered care models are driving innovation in healthcare. Consumer health data is widespread and embedded in daily life, with information available from apps, wearables, devices and medical records. At the same time, retailers and pharmacies are becoming care access points, while life sciences companies are going direct to consumers. And, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is pushing forward initiatives to open up patients' access to health data.
Wheel's partnership with b.well gives AI-native companies, retailers, life sciences companies, payers, health systems and consumer health brands a faster, more complete way to compete in the consumer-driven healthcare race, according to the two companies.
B.well’s platform provides consumer-authorized health record access, consent, identity, patient matching, access infrastructure and open standards-based APIs. Over the past eight years, Wheel built an AI-first platform for scalable virtual care programs and provides the clinical delivery layer, including virtual care, clinician network operations, prescribing, patient support and pharmacy workflows.
By connecting their capabilities, the two companies can close the loop from data to care, Kristen Valdes, founder and CEO of b.well Connected Health, said.
"Today people are loading their information into platform LLMs and into organizations like Google Health and Samsung Health, but they really need an easier pathway to care if the insight should surface that there's something that needs to be done, even if that is an evidence-based medicine gap in care, a lapse in a medication, a titration necessary for a medication," Valdes told Fierce Healthcare.
The combined infrastructure is designed to support consumer-authorized health record access, smarter intake and clinical context, AI-enabled guidance and care routing, virtual care, prescribing and pharmacy coordination as well as follow-up and outcome measurement, according to the companies.
"This is going to enable the next version of healthcare that we're seeing play out in the market today," said Michelle Davey, CEO of Wheel.
"Many people are launching AI-native solutions to the market that pull in everything that b.well does, a patient health record, wearables data, labs data, and we're seeing patients start to interact with their healthcare earlier because they have access to the record for the first time. But what we're seeing is the lack of ability for somebody to go from the context generation of a patient health record or their wearable data to actually getting the care that they need and they seek," Davey said. "Through this partnership, we're connecting all of the underlying infrastructure so that a company in healthcare can create an AI consumer healthcare experience that allows a patient to pull their health record, get all their wearable data, their lab data, and then our ability to transfer that to the right place of care."
She added, "Wheel's clinical action layer turns all of that context into actual clinical action and delivery behind the scenes, so a patient is no longer waiting and no longer left to figure it out themselves once they have all of the information at their fingertips."
The combined offering will be initially available through Wheel Clinic, which is working behind the scenes of Walmart's Better Care Services platform. Walmart launched the digital health platform earlier this year.
Wheel Clinic supports scalable business-to-business (B2B) and direct-to-consumer (DTC) virtual care programs across cardiometabolic health, GLP-1 care, women’s health, primary care, urgent care and emerging Medicare Bridge models.
"We have a number of other partners that we're working with and talking with right now to bring this fully to market with them. It can look different across pharma or AI consumer companies or retailers," Davey said.
The Wheel and b.well partnership provides companies with an "easy button" for consumer-driven, AI-powered virtual care models, she said.
"This allows two infrastructure companies to pre-wire all of the infrastructure to make this experience possible for any company looking to enable a virtual-first care service," Davey said.
Launched in 2018, Wheel has grown rapidly by powering the infrastructure behind virtual care with its white-label service. The company's tech helps companies scale up telehealth services—and do it in weeks rather than 15 months. Wheel’s virtual care platform includes configurable virtual care programs across urgent care, primary care, convenience care and condition management and a nationwide clinician network.
B.well operates a health data network designed to support consumer-mediated access to live clinical data across more than 2.2 million providers and 320 health plans, labs and other sources. The company connects consumers to their health data across a nationwide network of health systems and data sources. This secure exchange is enabled by CLEAR1, CLEAR’s secure identity platform, to verify users and issue a reusable digital IAL2 credential that b.well can rely on across interactions.
Typically, patient intake, the provider visit, prescription, pharmacy support and follow-up often happen across disconnected systems. This creates friction for patients to manage their health.
The combined offering from Wheel and b.well seamlessly pulls in a patient's health record and can then route patients to care or pharmacy services, executives said.
"It gather all of the information that the clinicians need in order to review and potentially diagnose and prescribe. It gives us a new way to give the clinician much more information about a patient than they may have had before," Davey said. "With a weight management flow, if we see an A1C out of range, they're now able to treat the patient for more than just weight management, potentially screening for Type 2 diabetes or other cardiometabolic health issues that they can either refer the patient to in-person care or labs if they need to, or treat them through the Wheel platform in a longitudinal manner."
Giving clinicians access to a patient's longitudinal health record during a virtual care service will support more accurate care with less medical errors, Valdes contends.
Virtual care models continue to evolve with AI as the new interface and that requires a different infrastructure behind the scenes, Davey and Valdes say.
"Patients now have more access to information, but where that breaks down is getting that information to a clinician in a way that they can use it to help the patient through their care journey," Davey noted. "Today, getting your patient health record from somebody like ChatGPT through b.well, you can query it and ask a lot of questions, which is an incredible thing to do, but then you're left with: 'Where do I end up?' If you do book a primary care appointment, which takes roughly 26 days on average, then you end up with this long list of questions for the provider and all this information that a clinician doesn't have. With Wheel we've really built the underlying infrastructure, the clinical action layer, to absorb all of that context, turn it into a clinician summary, decide the next best action, and then actually complete that care totally online."
Wheel is building for the next-generation of healthcare as most healthcare will begin online, Davey asserted.
"We're seeing that play out in real-time. AI is just an impetus to all of that happening, but it's only one of the major tailwinds that we're seeing in the market. I think we're very well-positioned not only to enable and react to that innovation coming but actually push the system forward systemically by building relationships with b.well, and some of the AI-powered healthcare that we are building here at Wheel," she said.
Valdes asserts that consumer-driven healthcare is now at a tipping point, propelled by publicly available AI chatbots and initiatives by CMS to push forward patient access to data and AI tools.
"Platform LLMs became the digital front door of healthcare almost overnight," she said. "What you're seeing is a shift from a system-centric environment to one that is now consumer-centric and consumer-mediated." people are loading their information into platform LLMs and into organizations like Google Health and Samsung Health, but they really need an easier pathway to care if the insight should surface that there's something that needs to be done, even if that is an evidence-based medicine gap in care, a lapse in a medication, a titration necessary for a medication," Valdes told Fierce Healthcare.
The combined infrastructure is designed to support consumer-authorized health record access, smarter intake and clinical context, AI-enabled guidance and care routing, virtual care, prescribing and pharmacy coordination, as well as follow-up and outcome measurement, according to the companies.
"This is going to enable the next version of healthcare that we're seeing play out in the market today," said Michelle Davey, CEO of Wheel.
"Many people are launching AI-native solutions to the market that pull in everything that b.well does, a patient health record, wearables data, labs data, and we're seeing patients start to interact with their healthcare earlier because they have access to the record for the first time. But what we're seeing is the lack of ability for somebody to go from the context generation of a patient health record or their wearable data to actually getting the care that they need and they seek," Davey said. "Through this partnership, we're connecting all of the underlying infrastructure so that a company in healthcare can create an AI consumer healthcare experience that allows a patient to pull their health record, get all their wearable data, their lab data, and then our ability to transfer that to the right place of care."
She added, "Wheel's clinical action layer turns all of that context into actual clinical action and delivery behind the scenes, so a patient is no longer waiting and no longer left to figure it out themselves once they have all of the information at their fingertips."
The combined offering will be initially available through Wheel Clinic, which is working behind the scenes of Walmart's Better Care Services platform. Walmart launched the digital health platform earlier this year.
Wheel Clinic supports scalable business-to-business (B2B) and direct-to-consumer (DTC) virtual care programs across cardiometabolic health, GLP-1 care, women’s health, primary care, urgent care and emerging Medicare Bridge models.
"We have a number of other partners that we're working with and talking with right now to bring this fully to market with them. It can look different across pharma or AI consumer companies or retailers," Davey said.
The Wheel and b.well partnership provides companies with an "easy button" for consumer-driven, AI-powered virtual care models, she said.
"This allows two infrastructure companies to pre-wire all of the infrastructure to make this experience possible for any company looking to enable a virtual-first care service," Davey said.
Launched in 2018, Wheel has grown rapidly by powering the infrastructure behind virtual care with its white-label service. The company's tech helps companies scale up telehealth services—and do it in weeks rather than 15 months. Wheel’s virtual care platform includes configurable virtual care programs across urgent care, primary care, convenience care and condition management and a nationwide clinician network.
B.well operates a health data network designed to support consumer-mediated access to live clinical data across more than 2.2 million providers, 320 health plans, labs and other sources. The company connects consumers to their health data across a nationwide network of health systems and data sources. This secure exchange is enabled by CLEAR1, CLEAR’s secure identity platform, to verify users and issue a reusable digital IAL2 credential that b.well can rely on across interactions.
Typically, patient intake, the provider visit, prescription, pharmacy support and follow-up often happen across disconnected systems. This creates friction for patients to manage their health.
The combined offering from Wheel and b.well seamlessly pulls in a patient's health record and can then route patients to care or pharmacy services, executives said.
"It gathers all of the information that the clinicians need in order to review and potentially diagnose and prescribe. It gives us a new way to give the clinician much more information about a patient than they may have had before," Davey said. "With a weight management flow, if we see an A1C out of range, they're now able to treat the patient for more than just weight management, potentially screening for Type 2 diabetes or other cardiometabolic health issues that they can either refer the patient to in-person care or labs if they need to, or treat them through the Wheel platform in a longitudinal manner."
Giving clinicians access to a patient's longitudinal health record during a virtual care service will support more accurate care with less medical errors, Valdes contends.
Virtual care models continue to evolve with AI as the new interface and that requires a different infrastructure behind the scenes, Davey and Valdes say.
"Patients now have more access to information, but where that breaks down is getting that information to a clinician in a way that they can use it to help the patient through their care journey," Davey noted. "Today, getting your patient health record from somebody like ChatGPT through b.well, you can query it and ask a lot of questions, which is an incredible thing to do, but then you're left with: 'Where do I end up?' If you do book a primary care appointment, which takes roughly 26 days on average, then you end up with this long list of questions for the provider and all this information that a clinician doesn't have. With Wheel, we've really built the underlying infrastructure, the clinical action layer, to absorb all of that context, turn it into a clinician summary, decide the next best action, and then actually complete that care totally online."
Wheel is building for the next generation of healthcare, as most healthcare will begin online, Davey asserted.
"We're seeing that play out in real-time. AI is just an impetus to all of that happening, but it's only one of the major tailwinds that we're seeing in the market. I think we're very well-positioned not only to enable and react to that innovation coming but actually push the system forward systemically by building relationships with b.well, and some of the AI-powered healthcare that we are building here at Wheel," she said.
Valdes asserts that consumer-driven healthcare is now at a tipping point, propelled by publicly available AI chatbots and initiatives by CMS to push forward patient access to data and AI tools.
"Platform LLMs became the digital front door of healthcare almost overnight," she said. "What you're seeing is a shift from a system-centric environment to one that is now consumer-centric and consumer-mediated."