A recent blog note raised the topic of the "Amazoning" of healthcare (see: The ‘Amazoning’ of Healthcare Will Bring Challenges and Opportunities for Health Plans). In the article, the term "Amazoning" was defined in the following way:
At a recent healthcare conference I attended, it sure sounded like it. I heard healthcare professionals using “Amazoning” as a verb referring to the rapid delivery of products and services, relentless focus on customer experience and cost optimization, and threat to various industries like retail, computing and entertainment.
There is no question that Big Tech companies like Amazon, Google, and Apple are aggressively pursuing healthcare projects (see, for example: What Are the Consequences of Big Tech Entering the Healthcare Market?; Big Tech Is Knocking on Hospital Doors; It's All About the Data; Healthcare Will Contribute a Sizable Portion of Future Earnings for Apple). The key question with regard to Amazon and its competitors is what component of healthcare is most appealing to them for business ventures. I feel certain that they are not interested in competing in the area of inpatient care. Health systems already have invested huge amount of money in infrastructure. The field is also too regulated and health systems lag considerably in their expertise and foresight in IT deployment. Moreover, Big Tech companies have had little difficulty incentivizing large health systems to share their clinical data with them (see: In a ‘Wild West’ environment, hospitals differ sharply in what patient data they give Google).
No, the focus of Big Tech will inexorably be on wellness and primary care. This lends itself well to (1) rapid delivery of products and services, (2) relentless focus on customer experience and (3) cost optimization. I have recently blogged extensively about the increasing sophistication of health wearables and their integration into what I have called wearable health ecosystems (WHEs) (see: The Evolution of "Wearable Health Ecosystems" and Associated Partnerships.
In my opinion, a large percentage of health-oriented consumers in a few years will have many of their health diagnostics monitored by home-based smart phones, smart watches, and integrated diagnostic devices (see: Digital Health Wearables Can Be Used to Detect Gait Disorders, Undiagnosed Diseases). I have suggested that WHEs in the future will generate specific referrals to health system specialists, bypassing one of the primary roles of PCPs (Status Reports and Hospital Referrals from Wearable Health Ecosystems; Fitbit to Be Acquired by Google). It has been estimated that hospital PCPs are responsible for accounting for about 90% of hospital costs on the basis of clinical referrals. If my prediction about WHE-generated referrals is correct, Big Tech will have a significant grip on a large percentage of hospital referrals and thus revenue.
Comments