Programmable care infrastructure for virtual clinics
Brendan Keeler, Senior PM at Zus Health, on building infrastructure for digital health
This points to a wedge for new healthcare infrastructure, because the winning digital clinics are not simple online versions of a doctor’s office. They run around ongoing care plans, asynchronous messaging, remote monitoring, identity specific protocols, and value based incentives, while legacy EHRs were built around in person visits, billing events, and rigid workflows. Zus is filling that gap with a shared patient record layer and workflow tools that let virtual care builders design around their own operating model.
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The concrete mismatch is workflow. A virtual first clinic may have coaches, care navigators, prescribers, and specialists all touching the same patient between visits. Zus describes its tooling as organized around care plans and care teams, not single encounters and claims, which is much closer to how companies like Omada and community specific clinics actually operate.
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The data problem is just as important. Disease specific and identity specific startups need a full record before they can personalize care, from meds and labs to social context. Zus built a patient 360 product to pull and clean that record, because stitching this together across old healthcare systems is still table stakes for any digital provider.
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This helps explain why specialized digital health companies keep proliferating. FOLX was built for LGBTQIA patients who often face poor provider fit, and Omada expanded from diabetes into adjacent conditions, showing how these businesses are shaped by narrow clinical populations and custom journeys rather than one generic clinic workflow.
The next phase is software that looks less like a hospital record system and more like programmable care infrastructure. As more virtual clinics expand across specialties, payer models, and patient segments, the companies that own shared data, task routing, and cross organization collaboration will become the default foundation under digital healthcare.