What health tech companies can learn from Xealth’s journey

In a healthcare landscape saturated with enterprise solutions, few digital health companies have delivered system-wide value as quickly as Xealth. By focusing on integration, scalability, and clinical utility, Xealth has helped health systems streamline digital health into patient care.

For health tech leaders, founders, and investors, Xealth’s path is instructive. It offers real lessons in what it takes to build meaningful, adoptable innovation that earns the trust of both clinicians and institutions. Xealth’s path is an interesting case study because instead of trying to disrupt healthcare it focused on coordination. 

First, a brief history of Xealth:

• Xealth was founded in 2017 as a spinout from the Providence health system’s Digital Innovation Group in Seattle, Washington. The company’s mission is to bridge the gap between clinicians and patients by integrating digital health tools directly into electronic health records (EHRs), enabling providers to prescribe, deliver, and monitor digital health content, apps, and services.

• Xealth raised over $52 million in funding from major healthcare investors and health systems. In 2023, Xealth shared that the company facilitated 12 million digital health orders for 100,000 medical providers.

• By 2025, Xealth’s platform was used by more than 500 hospitals and 30+ large health systems, integrating over 50 digital health solutions and connecting with major health systems like Nebraska Medicine, Duke Health, Advocate Health, UPMC, and Mass General Brigham.  

• On July 7, 2025, Samsung announced that it signed an agreement to acquire Xealth, and that Xealth will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Samsung. 

That’s a pretty fast clip for a digital health company! There are a few key lessons others can take away from their success: 

1. Start with the Clinician Workflow

If your digital health solution depends on busy clinicians logging into yet another platform, you’re already losing. Xealth’s value proposition is simple but valuable: integrate digital health tools directly into the electronic health record (EHR). For a doctor, prescribing an at-home physical therapy routine or pregnancy education became as easy as writing an antibiotic. By becoming the engine behind the curtain, Xealth allowed health systems to launch and manage dozens of digital health tools—all in one platform, all within clinical workflows.

2. Balance standard functionality with customization 

Duke University Health System became a Xealth customer in 2017 (while I was working there.) I was part of the team that engaged with clinicians about use cases and functionality. Xealth provided a variety of existing integration partners that the hospital could choose from, but it also enabled the addition of custom content triggered by an algorithm determined by the clinical teams. For example, I worked with the Department of OB-GYN to transition from a hard copy packet of pregnancy and delivery information that was given at the first visit, to sections delivered digitally at different trimesters and after birth, which were sent based upon patient information. Duke was able to put in stop measures for information delivery in the case of a miscarriage being documented and to have the postpartum content sent after a birth was noted in the EHR. 

Xealth took the hard part – EHR integration of apps, videos, content, and telehealth solutions – and allowed clinical teams to do what they did best – advise on patient support and education. By also curating a collection of digital health assets within the EHR that providers could either filter by condition or see the whole list, they took away the mental fatigue of having to remember the names of approved assets with a simple menu. 

3. Build smart, strategic partnerships

From its earliest days, Xealth worked with some of the biggest names in healthcare including Advocate Health, UPMC, and Cleveland Clinic. These weren’t just sales wins — they were co-creators. Each time a health system wanted to offer a new app to patients, Xealth streamlined the process. Once the initial integration was completed, future requests became easier. Over time, Xealth built a partner ecosystem of solutions serving surgery, maternity care, preventative care, PT and rehab, and chronic disease management. Instead of fighting the crowded field of digital health, they curated and connected it.

4. Lean into clinical impact and data

Anyone can promise engagement but Xealth delivered proof. Their platform enabled organizations to track how digital interventions affected outcomes, and they got loud about their success stories, publishing “best of’ reports in 2021 and 2023. One example showed that sending out pre-op and post-op patient education videos reduced surgical no-show rates by around 10%. For companies trying to sell to hospitals with strapped budgets, this kind of evidence matters. If a tool doesn’t result in measurable engagement or  improvement it’s not going to last.

5. Stay focused and mission-driven

Despite deep partnerships and big-name investors, Xealth never strayed far from its original mission: streamline digital health delivery through integration and patient engagement. Xealth didn’t pivot to be a remote patient monitoring company or a telemedicine provider. They stayed in their lane of aggregating existing health apps and allowing hospitals to add their own custom content in the same place — and made that lane indispensable.

In the end, Xealth’s success isn’t about flashy technology or chasing trends, it is about solving a real problem and doing it well. By prioritizing integration, clinician workflows, and meaningful partnerships, Xealth became the quiet infrastructure behind much of digital health’s front-end progress. For others in the space, Xealth’s story serves as a reminder: in healthcare, lasting value can come from enabling, not disrupting, the work of those who care for patients.

Katie D. McMillan, MPH is the CEO of Well Made Health, LLC, a business strategy consulting firm for health technology companies. She is also a curious researcher and writer focusing on digital health evidence, healthcare innovation, and women’s health. Katie can be reached at [email protected] or LinkedIn.