AMAZON BUILDS HEALTHCARE ENTERPRISE WITH ACQUISITION OF HEALTH NAVIGATOR
by John G. Baresky on 10/24/19
Amazon ( NASDAQ: AMZN ) continues to trek forward into the healthcare industry
with another acquisition; Amazon has purchased a
healthcare startup known as "Health Navigator".
Health Navigator, based in Chicago, Illinois, is a clinical healthcare information firm founded by an emergency medicine physician, Dr. David Thompson, which provides these and other solutions:
- After Care Instruction
- Clinical Documentation Support
- Coded Chief Complaints
- Diagnosis Engine
- Natural Language Processing
- Non-Commercial Research Database*
- Triage Engine
References
for evidence-based clinical decision making
The *resource database features over 25,000+ Internet resources comprised of
non-commercial websites linked to more than 2,800 clinical concepts?—?plus has
over 7,200 references in the database of which quite a few are directly linked
to the reference through a PubMedIC.
Health Navigator works with these and other applications or functional providers:
- Answering Services
- Digital Health Assistants
- Electronic Health Records ( EHR / EMR )
- Medical Call Centers
- Telemedicine
Some of Health Navigator's current client partners include Avizia, MDLIVE, Microsoft, NextGen and RUSH Medical.
As part of their enterprise-wide rollout internally and externally of healthcare innovation, Amazon will be deploying Health Navigator within its recently launched Amazon Care employee healthcare provider program.
Between its agreement with Oasis Medical ( a family practice organization based in Seattle, WA ) to serve as a provider for its Amazon Care employee health program, the acquisition of Health Navigator and its partnership with the Pittsburgh Health Data Alliance and with Cerner Amazon is not deterred from its healthcare mission despite the ongoing issue with its PillPack online mail order pharmacy unit and Surescripts.
As Amazon moves forward, it will be interesting to see how its actions are reflected within the realm of Haven Healthcare, its healthcare management partnership initiative with Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase. The organization is seeking ways to improve quality of care while reducing cost.
Amazon is clearly investing a considerable amount of staff, financial and technical resources to support its own employee medical care program as well as develop commercial opportunities for the future. It is navigating multiple channels in healthcare, developing partnerships and making strategic acquisitions which for now are submerged threats to unsuspecting, less strategic competitors.
LinkedIn: John G. Baresky
Twitter: Healthcare Marketing Guy
