Why do we still organize so much of healthcare around the moment something goes wrong? We wait for symptoms, book appointments and enter a system exceptionally skilled at investigating and treating disease. Yet our health is shaped every day, long before we cross a clinic’s threshold. It is shaped by how we sleep, eat, move, work, connect with others and cope with stress.
For me, the consumerization of healthcare raises a fundamental question: what happens when people gain the tools to participate in their health continuously, rather than only becoming involved when they become patients?
The answer could transform prevention, personalized health and the way we approach longevity. After approximately three decades in multinational companies, including around fifteen years at Novartis, I have enormous respect for medical science. My work today as a digital healthcare humanist and futurist has strengthened another conviction: we must design health around people’s lives.
Health cannot belong exclusively to institutions or professions. It concerns all of us. Wearables, connected scales, home diagnostics and AI-powered assistants are making that principle increasingly practical. They bring information into our homes and onto our wrists, creating opportunities to notice patterns and ask questions between appointments. But making healthcare more accessible requires much more than making technology available.
I experienced both the promise and the limitations personally.
My speaking schedule takes me across countries and time zones. With an Oura Ring, I can look at estimates of sleep, stress and recovery alongside how I actually feel. Those observations give me another perspective on a demanding routine.
A Personal Experiment with Health Technology
Recently, while travelling to Frankfurt, I tried two different headset sessions: a personalized protocol informed by my qEEG, followed later by a calming protocol. I felt stimulated after the first and more relaxed after the second, and the ring’s displayed stress patterns appeared consistent with those experiences. That was an interesting personal observation. It was not a controlled experiment, and it cannot establish that the headset caused the changes.
This distinction matters. Consumer technology can help us become more curious and attentive without turning every reading into medical proof. The useful question becomes: what does this information help me understand, and what action is justified?
That is where many products still fall short. A person can accumulate sleep scores, biological-age estimates, laboratory results and AI-generated recommendations while remaining uncertain about what to do next. A dashboard can display a hundred measurements and still leave the most important question unanswered: what matters for me today?
A number needs context. A recommendation needs evidence. An alert needs a sensible pathway for follow-up.
From Data to Meaningful Personalization
The FDA’s distinction between general wellness software and software intended for disease-related purposes illustrates why intended use matters. A tool that encourages healthy habits should not automatically be treated as a diagnostic instrument. We should expect similar clarity from the companies selling these services. What has been validated? In whom? What are the limitations? Does using the product improve meaningful outcomes?
Personalization must go deeper than placing someone’s name above generic advice. I often say that there is no average patient. Population evidence remains essential, but individuals differ in their biology, circumstances, resources and priorities. Advice that ignores those differences can be technically impressive and practically useless. An exhausted parent, a shift worker and a frequent traveller may need different routes towards healthier routines. Someone facing financial insecurity cannot simply subscribe to an expensive optimization programme.
This is why I describe the future through my “Longevity GPS” concept, which I have developed in my writing and speaking. A useful GPS understands your starting point, considers your destination and adjusts when conditions change. A health ecosystem should offer that same sense of direction while being honest about uncertainty.
It should help people prioritize achievable steps, understand when further assessment is appropriate and adapt as their circumstances evolve. AI could support that navigation by explaining information, organizing questions and helping people prepare for professional conversations. Its recommendations must remain open to challenge, with clear limits and routes to human expertise.
Crucially, everyday health must also extend beyond medicine. I do not need to wait for a prescription to take a walk, make time for friends or protect space for rest. Clinicians have essential expertise, but they do not need to supervise every element of healthy living. Schools, employers, families, community organizations, coaches and other appropriately trained professionals can all contribute.
I would like to see new roles emerge around prevention education and health-data navigation, with clear boundaries around medical diagnosis and treatment. Their value would lie in helping people understand and act, while recognizing when specialist support is needed. Mental wellbeing, purpose and social connection must also have a place in this conversation. We should resist reducing a person’s health to whatever a device can measure most easily.
Making Personalized Health Accessible to Everyone
However, greater individual agency must never become an excuse to transfer every responsibility onto the individual. People cannot purchase their way out of unsafe housing, inaccessible services or working conditions that undermine their health.
WHO has highlighted how access barriers, limited digital literacy and poorly adapted services can exclude people from digital health. A longevity ecosystem designed primarily for affluent, digitally confident consumers would reproduce the inequalities it promises to address.
Affordability, accessibility and understandable guidance must therefore be part of the design from the beginning. Trust also depends on meaningful control over personal information. People should understand what is collected, who can access it and whether commercial incentives influence the advice they receive. Empowerment becomes questionable when a platform knows increasingly more about us while telling us increasingly less about how it operates.
Measuring Success Beyond Technology
Ultimately, I believe consumerization can help us move towards a culture in which health is understood and supported every day. Success should be judged by whether people gain understanding, make useful changes and receive appropriate support. Selling more tests or generating more notifications is an inadequate measure of progress. Healthcare is leaving the clinic because life has always happened outside it. Our responsibility is to make that transition scientifically credible, accessible and human.
The future I want is one in which people have greater agency over their health, professionals can contribute where their expertise matters most, and technology helps everyone find a route towards living better.
About the Author:
Philippe Gerwill is the Founder and CEO of PGEA Ltd, an executive advisory firm based in Abu Dhabi focused on responsible innovation, AI, digital health and longevity. With over three decades of global experience, he advises organisations on AI-enabled healthcare, personalised medicine and digital transformation. Philippe is also an international speaker and thought leader.
References:
FDA, General Wellness: Policy for Low Risk Devices: https://www.fda.gov/regulatory-information/search-fda-guidance-documents/general-wellness-policy-low-risk-devices
WHO/Europe, Digital health equity gaps remain, but solutions are becoming clearer, new report shows: https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/17-03-2026-digital-health-equity-gaps-remain--but-solutions-are-becoming-clearer--new-report-shows