From Alexa to COVID-19 tests, Amazon expands healthcare aspirations in 2021 – Mobihealth News
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At the very beginning of 2021, Amazon’s high-profile healthcare partnership with Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase, dubbed Haven, finally broke down.
The goal of the joint venture between some of the country’s largest and most powerful companies was to disrupt the healthcare industry, lowering costs and improving outcomes for their employees. The project shut down after only three years.
But that hasn’t kept the tech and retail giant out of the healthcare space. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to burden the system and change the way care is delivered, Amazon has begun to add and expand its health offerings this year.
The Alexa voice assistant – which many consumers know best as a way to set a timer while dinner’s in the oven or to start their favorite playlist – is now making moves into health systems and elder care.
In September, the company announced Alexa Together, a subscription service that allows caregivers to remotely monitor and assist aging family members in their homes. They receive alerts if their loved one hasn’t used Alexa by a certain time. Caregivers can also remotely set reminders or help their family members manage settings on their devices.
It also includes an urgent response service. When Alexa Together officially launched earlier this month, Amazon announced integrations with third-party fall-detection companies, and Alexa can call its emergency response team if necessary.
Outside the home, the company expanded its Alexa Smart Properties arm, which is used to deploy the voice assistant at scale in businesses like hotels, vacation rentals and offices, to senior living communities and health systems.
Liron Torres, head of Alexa Smart Properties at Amazon, told MobiHealthNews the system could simplify care tasks for providers, like bringing a blanket or answering questions about the cafeteria menu.
“One of the things that we kept hearing over and over from these communities and from healthcare systems was that we’re understaffed, we’re really stretched, we need tools to help us still provide that high level of care that we would like to provide, while still not disturbing our processes,” she said.
Wearables are a big business, attracting the likes of major tech players like Apple, Google and Samsung. But Amazon was a relatively late entrant to the space, only releasing its Halo health tracker in August 2020. In comparison, Apple first announced its Watch in 2014 and began shipping units in April 2015. Samsung unveiled its first smartwatch in 2013.
Amazon began adding to its Halo offerings this year. In June, it added a feature called Movement Health, which aimed to give users suggestions to improve their functional fitness, like posture, stability and mobility.
Only a few months later, Amazon revealed a new wearable, the Halo View. Unlike its predecessor, the Halo Band, it includes an AMOLED screen.
Alongside its wearable announcement, the company also took aim at Apple, which has been expanding its Fitness+ classes and offerings. Halo Fitness includes a variety of workout options, like strength training, yoga, outdoor workouts and mobility classes.
It also launched a meal planning service, Halo Nutrition, that helps users find new recipes and put together weekly menus.
In March, Amazon landed emergency use authorization from the FDA for its COVID-19 test with at-home sample collection, which would fit into the company’s employee-screening program.
A few months later, Insider reported that Amazon was planning to launch an at-home COVID-19 testing kit, with long-term plans to expand even further into the diagnostics space, including tests for other respiratory infections and sexually transmitted infections.
In June, Amazon launched the direct-to-consumer COVID-19 test for U.S. consumers.
At the very end of 2020, Insider first reported that Amazon would expand its internal virtual care service, called Amazon Care, to outside employers.
Rumors swirled for months, but in March the company officially confirmed the app-based telehealth offering would be available to other employers in Washington state, with plans to expand nationally in the summer.
By September, it was reported Amazon would bring its full-package Amazon Care offerings, including telehealth and in-person home visits, to 20 major cities throughout next year.
“We have found that being able to take a customer through that journey virtually, and then in person, and it’s seamless and friction-free, is a winning combination,” Dr. Kristen Lloyd Helton, director of Amazon Care, said during a panel discussion at HLTH in October.
“But patients are losing patience. They have very high standards, and they expect a lot from us. And they’re asking us to do more. We are hearing that from a clinical services standpoint. They really wanted primary care. So we’re doing that. I think we’re hearing they want more self-service. And so we’re building that.”
Last month, Hilton became Amazon Care’s second publicly announced employer customer. Compared with fitness company Precor, the other company that’s known to provide the service to its workers, Hilton is much larger, with about 141,000 employees worldwide.
“Amazon has a history of building on experiments to learn from what didn’t work the first time, to continue to tinker till they succeed,” healthcare IT expert Paddy Padmanabhan wrote on HealthcareITNews in March.
“With the learnings from their healthcare bets so far, will the whole now be bigger than the sum of the parts for Amazon Care?”
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© 2021 MobiHealthNews is a publication of HIMSS Media
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The latest news in digital health delivered daily to your inbox.
