We wrote about the Amazon Care launch in 2019 when Amazon began offering telehealth services to company employees in the Seattle area. We also covered the CB Insights 2020 Healthcare Survey results which found that 30% of the respondents named Amazon as the tech giant with the greatest future impact on healthcare. Amazon recently announced it now offers the telemedicine program to other Washington-based employers. The company also plans to expand Amazon Care to all states and Washington D.C. starting this summer.
With Amazon Care, subscribers can skip physician, urgent care, and hospital waiting rooms. They can access healthcare professionals within 60 seconds. Physicians are available 24/7 for phone, messaging, or video consults. The Amazon Care platform provides primary and urgent care services including infection testing for COVID-19 and influenza, vaccinations, treatment for illnesses and injuries, preventive care, sexual health, prescription request, refills and deliver and more. Amazon Care helps subscribers avoid the risk of infection in crowded clinics and doctors’ offices. According to an Amazon news release, participants are impressed and pleased by the platform’s response speed and the convenience of accessing care from the comfort of their own homes at any time of day.
We recently wrote about United Healthcare’s nationwide Optum Care rollout. Amazon Care’s nationwide schedule is another high-profile validation of digital healthcare and remote patient monitoring. We predict that nearly all healthcare large companies will offer virtual care by or before 2025.
