The healthcare sector is a $3.5 trillion industry that looks attractive to any business. But overcoming the healthcare industry’s barriers to entry isn’t easy when it comes to traditional business models. The healthcare regulatory environment is challenging at best. And market constraints are abundant resulting in disconnections between supply and demand. While these challenges have hindered others, Amazon just might excel where others have failed. With its broad offerings and reach, an Amazon healthcare company could make major healthcare industry news.
And given recent acquisitions, research and development, and joint ventures, Amazon looks well poised to shake things up. In fact, the biggest healthcare industry news in recent times may be the evolution of a dominant Amazon healthcare company.
Amazon—Gearing Up to Make Major Healthcare Industry News
Amazon seems to have their hand in everything, so the creation of an Amazon healthcare company would not be surprising. Amazon Web Services (AWS) has its own dedicated Healthcare and Life Sciences division. Likewise, AWS has announced it is extending its natural language processing (NLP) service—called Amazon Comprehend into the medical record arena. This service would allow physicians and providers to extract information from existing records. In essence, this could be significant healthcare industry news that disrupts the norm.
However, an Amazon healthcare company would be much more than analytics and AI. Recent healthcare industry news reported that Amazon recently acquired PillPack. PillPack is a pharmaceutical company that delivers medications to patients by mail who are on multiple daily drugs. Given Amazon’s existing supply chain systems, getting into the pharmaceutical business could be big healthcare industry news for other players. Having to pick up prescriptions from a pharmacy could be a thing of the past.
An Amazon Healthcare Company with Home Conveniences
An Amazon healthcare company might also envision a more efficient and quality care for patients from the comforts of their home.
Reports have indicated that significant expertise and research development in at-home health diagnostics is occurring at Amazon. Recent efforts to acquire Confer Health, an at-home test developer startup, failed. But an Amazon healthcare company interested in this sector would make notable healthcare industry news. In fact, using Alexa to offer diagnosis possibilities to individuals based on changes in their voice is being explored.
The obvious issue here is overcoming healthcare regulatory constraints in providing—and interpreting—such at-home tests. Here, it is highly likely that telemedicine will come into play for an Amazon healthcare company. Imagine that a person gets an infection. Alexa identifies possible diagnosis and recommends an at-home diagnostic test. The test is then interpreted by a telemedicine physician who then recommends treatment. In many cases, that treatment may be a medication, which Amazon can then provide. It’s a one-stop healthcare experience without ever having to leave your home. That would be a game changer and make huge healthcare industry news.
Amazon—Beta Testing a New Healthcare Industry?
Perhaps, one development suggesting an Amazon healthcare company is around the corner is one of its recent joint ventures. The joint venture involved Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JP Morgan Chase that could make noteworthy healthcare industry news. The three companies are striving to create a simplified, high-quality, transparent healthcare system for their combined employees. In total, the three companies have over a million employees. And the devised healthcare services will be designed with profit-making incentives or market-like constraints.
With this opportunity, an Amazon healthcare company could naturally enhance employee benefits. Likewise, it could also create, develop, analyze and refine a completely new healthcare model.
Such a model might even include meal plans and preventative measures, which of course would be available through Amazon. And with data outcomes involving a million lives, such an Amazon healthcare company would make tremendous healthcare industry news. This news without a doubt has the potential to completely disrupt healthcare as we know it and at-home health diagnostics.
The Biggest Healthcare Industry News in Decades
The healthcare industry is one of the last major sectors that have yet to experience massive market disruption today. Except for the real estate commission model, healthcare stands alone in this regard. An Amazon healthcare company certainly has the potential to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. And ultimately, this could mean better healthcare, lower cost and higher efficiency for all of us.
Obviously, at the same time, Amazon would win as well. If an Amazon healthcare company could actually pull this off, it will indeed make major societal change in at-home health diagnostics
