Experts say Amazon could be planning a roll-out of healthcare services to its Prime members and others
Clinical laboratory leaders will want to note that the Telehealth and home healthcare industries have expanded with the launch of Amazon Care, a virtual medical clinic and home care services program from global retailer Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN).
Amazon is piloting Amazon Care as a benefit for its 53,000
Seattle-area employees and their families, according to published reports. Could
this indicate the world’s largest online retailer is moving into the primary
care space? If so, clinical laboratory leaders will want to follow this
development closely, because the program will need clinical laboratory support.
Amazon has successfully disrupted multiple industries in its
corporate life and some experts speculate Amazon may be using its own employees
to design a new medical delivery model for national roll-out.
The S&P report goes on to state, “In as little as five years, the Seattle-based e-commerce company could interlink its system of capabilities and assets to launch various healthcare products, insurance plans, virtual care services, and digital health monitoring to a broader population. The rollout would be part of a larger plan by Amazon to deliver convenient, cost-effective access to care and medications across the U.S., likely tied to Amazon’s Prime membership program, according to experts.”
Modern Healthcare reported that Amazon Care services include telemedicine and home visits to employees enrolled in an Amazon health insurance plan.
Experts contacted by S&P Global Market Intelligence
suggest Amazon:
Plans a “suite of customized health plans and
services for businesses and consumers;”
May offer health services to its five million
seller business and more than 100 million Amazon Prime members; and
Sees healthcare as a growing market and wants
greater involvement in it.
How Amazon Care Works
Amazon Care offers online, virtual care through a
downloadable mobile device application (app) as well as in-person home care for
certain medical needs, such as:
Colds, allergies, infections, and minor injury;
Preventative consults, vaccines, and lab tests;
Sexual health services; and
General health inquiries.
Becker’s Hospital Review reported that once a participant downloads the Amazon Care app to a smartphone or tablet and signs up for the program, he or she can:
Communicate with healthcare providers via text
or video;
Plan personal visits if needed;
Set payment methods in their user profile; and
Receive a “potential diagnosis” and treatment
plan.
The graphic above is taken from the S&P Global Market Intelligence report, which states, “Amazon is one of several tech firms vying for a share of the healthcare market where national spending is expected to reach $6.0 trillion by 2027, up from $3.6 trillion in 2018, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.” (Graphic copyright: S&P Global Market Intelligence.)
“The service eliminates travel and wait time, connecting employees and their family members to a physician or nurse practitioner through live chat or voice,” an Amazon spokesperson told CNBC, “with the option for in-person follow-up services from a registered nurse ranging from immunizations to instant strep throat detection.”
The “mobile health nurse” may also collect clinical laboratory
specimens, the Verge
reported.
Amazon has partnered with Oasis Medical Group, a family primary care practice in Seattle, to provide healthcare services for Amazon Care patients.
Paving the Way to Amazon Care
The Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) compares Amazon’s piloting of Amazon Care to similar healthcare projects that studied population health by first involving employee health plans.
HFMA’s analysis noted that Amazon Care is similar to Haven, a patient advocate organization based in Boston and New York that was created in 2018 by Amazon, JPMorgan Chase, and Berkshire Hathaway to lower healthcare costs and improve outcomes for participating companies.
Tech Crunch reported that in 2018 Amazon also purchased PillPack for nearly $1 billion and integrated its prescription delivery services into Amazon Care.
More recently, Amazon acquired Health Navigator and plans to bring those offerings to Amazon Care as well, CNBC reported. Founded in 2014, Health Navigator provides caregivers with symptom-checking tools that enable remote diagnoses.
Should Telemedicine Firms Be Nervous?
Dark Daily recently reported on Doctor on Demand’s launch of its own virtual healthcare telehealth platform called Synapse. The e-briefing also covered Doctor on Demand’s partnership with Humana (NYSE:HUM) to provide virtual primary care services to the insurer’s health plan members, including online doctor visits at no charge and standard medical laboratory tests for a $5 copayment.
So, should telemedicine firms be concerned about Amazon competing in their marketplace? Business Insider predicts Amazon will need time to beef up its medical resources to serve people online and in-person through Amazon Care.
But that’s the point of Amazon’s pilot, isn’t it? What comes
from it will be interesting to watch.
“Meanwhile, telemedicine firms can ink strategic
partnerships and strengthen their existing payer relationships to safeguard
against Amazon’s surge into the space,” Business Insider advised.
It remains to be seen how medical laboratory testing and reports
would fit into an expanded Amazon Care health network. Or, how clinical laboratories
will get “in-network” with Amazon Care, as it grows to serve customers beyond
Amazon’s employees.
As Dark Daily recently advised, medical laboratory leaders will want to ensure their lab’s inclusion in virtual care networks, which someday may include Amazon Care.
While approaches differ between the three companies, heavy investment in EMR/EHR and other HIT solutions could signal significant changes ahead for a market currently dominated by only a few major developers
If healthcare big data is truly a disruptive force in healthcare’s transformation, then a big battle looms for control of that data. Some experts say that the companies now dominating the electronic health record (EHR) market will soon face tough competition from the world’s biggest tech companies.
How this will impact medical laboratories and pathology practices remains to be seen. Labs are sure to be influenced by coming events, since clinical laboratory test data represents the largest proportion of an individual patient’s permanent medical record. It’s important to note, though, that while most EHR/HIT developers have been motivated by federal incentives, Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) are motivated by consumer demand, which increasingly dictates the direction of health technology development.
Thus, they may be better positioned to compete moving forward, as patients, physicians, and hospitals turn to precision medicine and value-based care for improved outcomes and increased revenues.
“The EMR efforts have moved hospitals from paper to digital records,” Bruce Carlson (above), Publisher of Kalorama Information, told HIT Infrastructure. “The next step is for tech giants to glean the data and improve upon that infrastructure. We’ll be talking about EHR in different ways in the next ten years.” (Photo copyright: Twitter.)
EMR/EHR Market Poised for Disruption
According EHR Intelligence, as of 2017, 97% of all US non-federal acute care hospitals and 84% of US hospitals had adopted an EHR system. Of these hospitals, more than half (50.5%) use products from just two developers—Cerner or Epic. That’s according to Health Data Management’s coverage of the KLAS report “US Hospital EMR Market Share 2017.”
However, recent interest in HIT and EHR systems by major Silicon Valley tech companies could lead to potential disruptions in the current state of the market. According to The New York Times, in the first 11 months of 2017, 10 of the largest US technology companies were involved in healthcare equity deals worth $2.7-billion. This marks a drastic increase over the 2012 figure of $277-million.
Though each company is approaching the market differently, Google, Microsoft, and Apple are all working on projects that could influence how both consumers and healthcare professionals interact with and utilize medical record data.
Of the three, Apple is the most consumer-centric with their Apple Health personal health record (PHR) integration into Apple iOS for iPhones and iPads. Microsoft, however, is working on developing analytics tools and storage solutions aimed at healthcare providers in general. And Google, through its parent company Alphabet, is focusing on data processing and storage.
Amazon also is working on its own HIT project which it calls 1492. While details are scant, HIT Infrastructure reports that the project is focused on interoperability among disparate EHR systems to improve sharing of protected health information (PHI) between providers, patients, and other healthcare providers, such as clinical labs and pathology groups. HIT Infrastructure also reported on rumors of Amazon branching into telemedicine using their Amazon Echo and Alexa platforms.
Security Concerns and Opportunities for Clinical Laboratories
According to Computerworld’s coverage of IDC research, by 2020, 25% of patients are expected to be taking part in ‘bring your own data” healthcare scenarios. Tech-savvy medical laboratories could find opportunities to interact directly with patients and encourage follow-through on test orders or follow-up on routine testing.
However, shifting protected health information to devices carried by consumers is not without risks.
“How do I know the data won’t make its way to some cloud somewhere to be shared, sold, etc.” Jack Gold, Principal Analyst with J. Gold Associates, told Computerworld. “And if I rely on an app to tell me what to do—say, take my meds—and it somehow gets hacked, can it make me sick, or worse?”
Nevertheless, with tech giants already developing products for the consumer market and healthcare provider industry, it’s a given consumers will soon gain greater access to their own healthcare information. Whether patients will ultimately embrace it, how they will use it, and how developers will interact with the data, is still undefined. But it’s coming and clinical laboratories should be prepared.
