CES 2026: Beyond Wearables: Real Outcomes

Wednesday (January 7, 2026) morning’s Always On: How Continuous Health Data is Transforming Care panel, moderated by Ami Bhatt, Chief Innovation Officer, American College of Cardiology, addressed exciting advancements in patient standard of care thanks to continuous health monitoring technologies that give patients insight, control, and democratize access to their own health data.

Part of the Great Minds Conference Track at CES 2026, the panel included Tom Hale, CEO, OURA; Lucienne Ide, CEO, Rimidi; and Jake Leach, President & CEO, Dexcom.
In digital health, the promise has never simply been “more data.” The real breakthrough happens when technology turns numbers into insight, and insight into better outcomes, beginning with glucose monitoring.

For decades, diabetes care meant finger sticks, episodic snapshots that required effort and often delivered frustration and pain. When continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) arrived, researchers initially worried that patients wouldn’t know what to do with a constant stream of numbers. What actually happened was the opposite. Once people could see real-time patterns, behavior changed almost immediately. No lectures. No complicated coaching. Just meaningful visibility.

“It’s not just about engagement. It’s about education. It’s about setting a context. It’s about making sure that they understand,” said Hale.“You want to be able to guide people down a path. That kind of power is about bringing information together in a context, in a user experience, when you have their attention. I think all of us would agree that we don’t want to be something that is an attention drain.”

That lesson, data only matters when it’s understandable, is pressing as healthcare becomes increasingly device-driven. Wearables, smart rings, blood pressure tools, remote sensors: they’re everywhere. But clinicians are already stretched thin, and none of them are begging for another dashboard. They need decision support layered into the electronic health record (EHR): context, risk flags, and evidence-based next steps that fit naturally into existing workflows.

The panelists pointed to the quiet but important work happening behind the scenes. Dexcom, for example, has spent years integrating CGM data directly into EHRs, eliminating app-hopping and friction for physicians. More than 160 clinics now use that approach. It’s part of what the panel called “architectures of participation” – giving patients agency, paired with “architectures of collaboration,” where device makers and EHR vendors finally start working in sync instead of shipping disconnected data streams.

There’s also a sense that sensing itself is still early. Continuous blood pressure monitoring is high on the industry’s wish list, as is better visibility into kidney health. Others see opportunity in tracking hormones like cortisol, turning invisible stressors into signals people can act on — in the same way glucose data demystified meal-to-metabolic responses.

The economics are shifting, too. With programs like CMS’s ACCESS initiative pushing outcomes-based reimbursement, value is migrating away from episodic visits toward continuous care at home. ROI now depends on who the patient is and what problem is being solved, preventing readmissions, supporting chronic disease, or simply helping healthy consumers stay that way.

The message presented by the panelists was clear: data alone won’t fix healthcare. But data that is contextual, clinically integrated, and patient-empowering just might – especially if it reduces burden instead of adding to it. The next phase of digital health isn’t about collecting more signals. It’s about making the ones we already have even more usable.

“For many years, as a medical device, people used our products because they needed them to survive,” said Leach. “It alerted them when their glucose was dangerously low. Now it’s about engaging them and allowing them to get the power and the outcomes from the technology. But as you go to these broader populations, you really have to have an engaging experience.”

From helping users form good habits to predicting serious health events, continuous health monitoring has flipped the traditional care model on its head.

See also: CES 2026: LG Demonstrates AI “Innovation In Tune With You”