Four Reasons why Clinical Adoption Fails
This post written by our CEO and Founder, Aditi U. Joshi
A few months ago, I had a conversation that crystallized everything I'd been observing throughout my career in digital health and emergency medicine. A leader of a global medical practice came to me frustrated: their physicians weren't using their telemedicine program to its full potential. Their solution? Buy telehealth training.
Now, anyone who knows me knows I'm a strong proponent of training—it's absolutely necessary for clinical adoption. But as I reflected on this conversation, drawing from years of building digital health tools and practicing medicine, I realized something critical: training alone wouldn't solve their problem.
And the data backs this up.
Healthcare systems have spent billions of dollars on digital health—buying tools, funding research, implementing new technologies. Yet approximately 70% of executives report seeing no return on investment. In most programs I've encountered, adoption rates hover around 23% at best. Only about one in four clinicians are actually using these services and offering them to patients.
We Keep Misdiagnosing the Problem
For years, we assumed this was a technology problem. We blamed reimbursement structures. We pointed to inadequate platforms. And while these were legitimate barriers early on, many of these issues have been solved. The technology exists. The reimbursement models have evolved.
Yet clinical adoption remains stubbornly low.
After examining this problem from every angle—as a physician, as a builder of digital health tools, and as someone who's spoken with countless organizations facing this challenge—I've identified four fundamental truths we need to accept:
1. Adoption Requires a Systemic Solution, Not Single Interventions
You can't fix broken workflows with training alone. You can't overcome poor tool selection with better marketing. You can't solve process gaps with technology updates.
The reality is that low adoption stems from multiple interconnected factors: broken workflows, misaligned purchasing decisions, inadequate process understanding, and sometimes genuinely inappropriate technology choices. Addressing any single factor in isolation rarely moves the needle. We need to diagnose the actual cause before prescribing a solution.
2. We Don't Need More Tech—We Need to Use What We Have
Please, I'm begging you: stop buying more technology.
Most healthcare systems aren't even effectively using what they already own. The gap isn't innovation—it's implementation. I see this pattern constantly: a program shows low adoption, so the organization purchases newer, "better" technology. When that also fails to achieve widespread use, everyone acts surprised.
We have the tools. What we're missing is the ability to implement them effectively.
3. We Can't Separate Patient and Clinician Solutions
Here's something crucial that often gets overlooked: patients and clinicians exist in the same ecosystem. They work closely together. When we talk about digital health innovation, we tend to silo patient-focused and clinician-focused solutions, but this separation is artificial and counterproductive.
Sometimes patients bring tools to clinicians they want to use. More often, clinicians recommend digital health solutions to patients as part of better care delivery. These interactions are intertwined.
I want to be crystal clear: when I talk about clinical adoption, I'm ultimately talking about better patient care. When clinicians don't know how to use a tool effectively, when it doesn't fit into their workflow, patients suffer. Our patients have become sophisticated—they want digital health tools. Getting clinicians to adopt, offer, and use these tools effectively directly translates to better patient outcomes.
4. Innovation Must Respect the Human Part of Change
This one is personal for me as both a clinician and a digital health innovator.
We understand, intellectually, that there are psychological barriers to adoption. We recognize clinician burnout. We know about behavioral economics and nudge theory. Yet when it comes to actually implementing technology, I consistently see organizations take what I call the "hammer approach"—mandating use and expecting compliance.
This doesn't work. Especially not with physicians.
You cannot force doctors to do something unless we want to. We'll uphold the standard of care. We want to do right by our patients. But unless a tool actually helps us, we simply won't adopt it. Any implementation strategy that ignores this fundamental truth about human behavior is doomed to fail.
Building a Different Approach
Ardexia was born from these realizations and built on 12 years of experience across millions of patient encounters.
We recognized that what's needed isn't generic change management but a systemic framework specifically designed for healthcare's unique complexity. Our approach combines two key elements:
Diagnostic precision: Figuring out what actually needs to happen to drive adoption in each specific context
Scalable automation: Creating tools that make implementation relevant and accessible for every clinician and every invested system or company
We're looking at this challenge through the eyes of clinicians because our entire founding team consists of clinicians ourselves. We asked: what would actually make this worthwhile? What have we seen that works?
Our measure of success is straightforward: organizations achieve higher adoption and ROI, clinicians feel better about their practice, and patients receive better care.
Moving Forward
Right now, we're looking for partners, whether for research collaboration or healthcare organizations ready to implement this framework across their settings. We're documenting reproducible results from a methodology built on years of real-world experience.
Here's what I know from speaking with countless people about this problem: everyone recognizes it. Nearly everyone says their organization struggles with it. We've figured out technology adoption in other sectors: companies have successfully implemented EMRs and enterprise software. But we haven't cracked the code on clinical adoption in healthcare.
We're wasting millions of dollars every year on this gap. It's time to stop accepting that waste as inevitable.
If you're struggling with digital health adoption in your organization, or if you know someone who is, let's talk. We offer a 30-minute assessment to discuss what might be most useful for your specific situation.
Because at the end of the day, this isn't just about adoption rates or ROI. It's about making sure the tools we've invested in actually reach the patients who need them.
Ready to move past low adoption rates? Contact us at ardexia.io or schedule an assessment to explore how we can help your organization.