Healthcare is falling behind on experimentation—and the gap is widening

If you are in healthcare, chances are your organization has a digital strategy. Maybe even a growth strategy. 

But only 17% of healthcare companies expect significant growth this year, which is the lowest of any industry surveyed in the 2025 Experimentation-Led Growth Report by Kameleoon.

The ambition is there. The execution is not.

Healthcare organizations are not short on ideas; they are short on enablement. The infrastructure, team setup, and experimentation practices often do not support consistent learning or cross-functional adaptation.

Since Kameleoon works with some of the largest and most respected health systems in the United States, we see this reality up close. Even systems with well-defined digital roadmaps and high-caliber teams often struggle to test, learn, and act fast enough to meet their goals.

Among those working to close that gap is Peter Ernst, Director of Website Optimization and Experimentation at Providence, a large not-for-profit health system.

“User expectations are that they can schedule most things online at their convenience," he says. "My neighborhood barbershop, my local car repair place both offer online scheduling. Users now expect that they can schedule a doctor just as easily.” 

In this article, we will discuss:

• Why experimentation matters
• Healthcare reports the lowest confidence in leadership and growth
• Healthcare underinvests in experimentation
• Healthcare is the most siloed industry for experimentation
• Strategy is aligned, but not yet executable
• Healthcare is overbuilding and underconnecting
• How healthcare can finally move from strategy to execution

Why experimentation matters

In our research, 9 out of 10 high-performing companies said that experimentation is critical to their growth strategy. That is not a coincidence.

Experimentation means making decisions based on evidence instead of assumption. In practice, this often involves A/B testing. Teams show different users different versions of a webpage, feature, message, or flow, then measure which version performs better. The goal is to learn quickly, reduce risk, and scale what works.

In healthcare, this could mean testing: 

• Whether patients prefer to schedule based on proximity, provider familiarity, or appointment type
• Whether text message reminders lead to more bookings than emails
• Whether an AI assistant helps reduce wait times

Without experimentation, teams are guessing. With it, they can understand what patients actually respond to and adjust their experiences accordingly.

Here is what the data shows and how experimentation can help healthcare teams move from planning to performance.

1. Healthcare reports the lowest confidence in leadership and growth

Only 3% of healthcare organizations say they are the one and only leader in their category. Compare that to 26% in SaaS and 23% in banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI). Just 17% expect significant growth this year, which is 39 points behind SaaS.

This is the lowest leadership confidence and growth outlook of any industry in the dataset. These numbers suggest not just market pressure but a lack of momentum-building systems like experimentation.

How to build confidence with evidence

Small experiments can help teams clarify what drives action and what holds patients back. 

For digital experience teams 

• Test channels and formats for appointment reminders
• Compare SMS with email, personalized messages with generic ones, and weekday versus weekend timing
• Track response and booking rates

For platform and product teams

• Test how provider options are ranked
• See if prioritizing by familiarity or past visits improves conversion more than earliest availability

2. Healthcare underinvests in experimentation 

Only 33% of healthcare organizations report strong investment in web experimentation. Just 37% say the same for feature experimentation. In SaaS, those figures are 67% and 63%.

These gaps show that healthcare organizations are not providing teams with the tools or processes to test and learn consistently.

How to make experimentation part of daily work

Even modest tests can uncover valuable insights and build a case for further investment.

For digital experience teams

• Compare care entry points such as a symptom checker versus a “Book Now” button
• Measure how quickly users complete tasks and whether they drop off

For platform and product teams

• Test routing logic
• See if low-acuity patients can be successfully directed to asynchronous care like chat or messaging, reducing phone volume and appointment bottlenecks

3. Healthcare is the most siloed industry for experimentation

Only 13% of healthcare organizations say all teams can run all types of experiments. That is 30 points behind SaaS and lower than BFSI, retail, and media and gaming.

This makes healthcare the most siloed industry in the dataset. Web, mobile, and product teams often operate separately, using different data and testing frameworks.

Peter Ernst puts it plainly: “There’s a misconception that healthcare users will tolerate bad design because they need the service. I’ve found the opposite. When someone is sick or stressed, they have zero patience for confusion. We have to make things easier.”

How to connect teams through shared testing

Use a common testing question to bridge departments and promote shared outcomes. For digital experience teams 

• Test how appointment options are presented
  • For example, use images, wait times, or provider bios
• Measure whether patients feel more confident selecting care

For platform and product teams

• Experiment with backend recommendation logic
• Try different combinations of proximity, provider familiarity, and clinical fit to see what improves access and follow-through

4. Strategy is aligned, but not yet executable

93% of healthcare organizations say their product-led growth (PLG) and marketing-led growth (MLG) strategies are aligned. But only 50% say their PLG strategy is mature, and just 30% say the same for MLG.

This shows that teams are coordinated, but not always ready to act. Without experimentation, strategy alignment can become a theoretical exercise rather than a practical one.

How to turn alignment into progress

Use experiments to validate whether aligned strategies actually work in practice.

For digital experience teams

• Test how new tools like AI scheduling assistants influence user behavior
• Measure whether patients complete more bookings or abandon the flow

For platform and product teams

• Run a controlled test of an AI-generated care plan
• Track whether staff override it, whether patients follow it, and whether outcomes improve.

5. Healthcare is overbuilding and underconnecting

Healthcare organizations are the most likely to build their own experimentation tools. According to the data, only 3% rely entirely on off-the-shelf platforms. 40% primarily build in-house and only supplement with vendor technology. This is the highest rate of internal builds among all industries in the report.

High-performing companies are far more likely to use off-the-shelf tools that integrate with their existing tech stacks. These platforms make it easier to test across systems, collaborate across teams, and scale experimentation without starting from scratch.

Integration is not optional. According to the research, 91% of companies planning to grow in 2025 use a single experimentation platform that is shared by multiple teams. Healthcare lags behind other industries like SaaS and BFSI in having these kinds of integrated systems, which limits its ability to coordinate and scale learning.

How to know if your tool is holding you back

If testing across systems is slow, limited, or overly manual, your platform might be the bottleneck.

For digital experience teams

Try using appointment or visit history to personalize a message in the patient portal. If that test requires engineering support or days of custom setup, your stack may not be built for scalable experimentation.

For platform and product teams

Test whether your reminder system can automatically stop sending messages once a patient books. If it cannot, the issue may not be the process. It may be that your tool is too disconnected to keep up.

How healthcare can finally move from strategy to execution

The 2025 Experimentation-Led Growth Report shows that healthcare organizations know what needs to change. The barrier is not intention—it is the lack of experimentation to validate decisions, learn quickly, and coordinate across teams.

You do not need a big budget or transformation initiative to begin. You need a habit of testing. Start with a real question. Run a real test. Measure a real outcome. Then do it again. This is how healthcare gets unstuck.

Want to see how your healthcare organization compares?

Download the 2025 Experimentation-Led Growth Report by Kameleoon to explore healthcare-specific benchmarks and next steps.