Samsung Electronics hosted its Galaxy Tech Forum on July 10, 2025, highlighting the role of AI in digital health care services under its Galaxy brand.

The event included speakers such as Pak Hon, head of Samsung’s digital health team, and Michael McSherry, CEO of healthcare platform Xealth.

Discussions focused on challenges in traditional health care and how digital tools may help address rising health costs, workforce shortages, and chronic diseases.

Earlier this week, Samsung announced the acquisition of Xealth, a US-based digital health care platform.

This acquisition seeks to integrate health data from wellness tools and clinical records. It contributes to Samsung’s digital health care ecosystem.

Samsung also plans to enhance its Samsung Health app with an AI engine. This feature aims to generate health insights based on users’ health and medical data.

It will use a generative AI chatbot to provide tailored guidance if potential health issues are identified.

🔗 Source: The Korea Times

🧠 Food for thought

1️⃣ Samsung’s decade-long digital health foundation built through strategic partnerships

Samsung’s acquisition of Xealth represents a culmination of nearly a decade of methodical groundwork in digital health, not a sudden pivot.

The company first established formal health tech initiatives in 2014 through its partnership with UC San Francisco to create a Digital Health Innovation Lab specifically focused on validating and accelerating commercialization of preventive health technologies 1.

This foundational work expanded through targeted collaborations like their 2019 cardiac rehabilitation program with Kaiser Permanente, which achieved an 87% completion rate compared to less than 50% for traditional center-based programs, while reducing readmissions to less than 2% versus the national average of 10-15% 2.

Each initiative addressed specific healthcare challenges, from the Birdsong Initiative’s tablet-based program that reduced depression symptoms and medication usage in senior care 3, to the Smart Healthcare Citizenship program in India that provided advanced diagnostic equipment to underserved communities 4.

These diverse projects have systematically built Samsung’s expertise across clinical validation, user experience, and healthcare integration. These critical capabilities are now being unified through the Xealth platform’s connections to over 500 U.S. hospitals 5.

2️⃣ Tech giants competing to solve healthcare’s fragmentation problem