Incumbent Providers Don't Stand a Chance

Your electronic health record system is a Nokia, and the iPhone just launched. This isn't clickbait; it's a stark reality facing healthcare providers across Europe and beyond.

The healthcare landscape is experiencing a seismic shift. Longevity clinics, AI-powered diagnostics platforms, and tech-enabled fitness and wellness services are creating extraordinary patient experiences whilst traditional providers struggle with decades-old processes. What's particularly striking isn't just the innovation, but the growing waiting lists for these out-of-pocket services. Patients are literally paying extra to avoid the inefficiencies of traditional healthcare.

Ten years ago, I predicted tech companies would swiftly conquer healthcare. I was wrong, but only about timing. The tools weren't ready then. Google Health failed in 2014 because the infrastructure, AI capabilities, and cultural readiness hadn't aligned. Today, they have.

The Shopify revelation

Consider what happened at Shopify when CEO Tobi Lutke ordered 1,500 Cursor licences for his team. Non-technical employees began building sophisticated solutions for their daily challenges. A sales representative with no coding background created an automated website performance auditing tool that transformed their entire prospecting process. Support teams developed real-time dashboards that eliminated hours of manual work. The fastest-growing user groups weren't engineers; they were revenue and support staff.

Shopify's approach centres on three principles: unlimited access to the best AI tools, transparent processes that show their work, and fostering a beginner's mindset. They "MCP everything," connecting all data streams so employees can interrogate information and build workflows instantly. The result? Massive waste reduction, real-time insights, and efficiency gains that seemed impossible just years ago.

Healthcare's transformative moment

Now imagine applying this approach to healthcare. Picture giving your nursing staff unlimited access to AI tools and protected time to experiment. If a non-technical sales representative at Shopify can automate complex auditing processes, what could a nurse with twenty years of patient experience create?

The potential extends far beyond efficiency. This represents what BCG calls "end-to-end reinvention" rather than merely optimising isolated tasks. Instead of digitising existing processes, successful organisations fundamentally reimagine how work gets done. They think goal-first, not task-first.

Healthcare operates at roughly 20% efficiency whilst pretending this represents excellence. Compare this to Shopify's 80% operational efficiency, and the chasm becomes clear. The waste isn't just inefficiency; it's fundamentally flawed processes that haven't evolved since the pre-digital era.

The new players' advantage

Meanwhile, fitness companies, hospitality brands, and technology firms are entering healthcare with fresh perspectives and powerful tools. They're building AI-first experiences from the ground up, unburdened by legacy systems or established workflows. These newcomers approach healthcare problems with beginner's minds, creating solutions that seem impossible to traditional providers.

They're developing and refining services at lightning speed. While hospitals debate committee structures for evaluating new technologies, these agile competitors are iterating daily, learning from real patient interactions, and scaling successful innovations across their platforms.

The resource allocation dilemma

This creates a profound question for healthcare leaders: should you purchase another MRI machine for €2 million, or invest €100,000 in AI tool licences for your entire staff? The return on investment calculation isn't even close when you consider the transformative potential of empowering every team member with AI capabilities.

Traditional providers face an innovation paradox. Despite billion-euro budgets and decades of expertise, they're losing to startups equipped with AI tools and fresh thinking. The expertise that once provided competitive advantage now creates resistance to fundamental change.

Your Cursor moment

The solution isn't complex, but it requires courage. Start with your ten best nurses. Give them unlimited access to AI tools like ChatGPT, Make, and Base44. Provide forty hours of protected experimentation time this month. Let them identify inefficiencies and build solutions for problems they encounter daily.

This mirrors Shopify's approach of empowering non-technical talent with powerful tools. Nurses possess the deepest operational knowledge and patient interaction insights in your organisation. They understand workflow bottlenecks, communication gaps, and process inefficiencies better than any consultant.

The timing has never been better. Open-source AI models now enable secure, private-cloud deployment, addressing healthcare's legitimate data privacy concerns. The tools are ready, the talent is available, and patient expectations have evolved.

The question isn't whether healthcare will transform, but whether your organisation will lead this transformation or become another casualty of technological disruption. Your Cursor moment awaits.