Amazon has been opening healthcare clinics for its employees as it expands virtual care offerings for enterprise clients.
Here's a breakdown of Amazon's healthcare ventures, acquisitions, product developments, partnerships and hiring trends reported by Becker's Hospital Review. The timeline includes Amazon's healthcare moves since June 2020.
June 14, 2021: Amazon has opened three new health centers in Detroit for its employees through a partnership with Crossover Health, a medical group that works with self-insured employers.
June 9, 2021: Amazon secured multiple companies as clients for its telehealth service, Amazon Care.
June 8, 2021: Amazon Pharmacy began a new prescription discount program, lowering the price for some drugs to $1 a month for Prime members.
June 2021: Amazon launched a service for hospitals that aggregates information into a data lake and standardizes it with machine learning. Now, HealthLake can offer patient outcome predictions, like mortality, based on stored data
Amazon is rolling out a new feature for its health-tracking device, Halo, that taps into the user's smartphone camera to scan their body movements and recommend exercises to improve mobility and posture.
May 20, 2021: Amazon rolled out a new mental health benefit May 20 for its 950,000 U.S. employees, giving them and their families access to services including virtual counseling.
May 17, 2021: Amazon will launch WorkingWell, a program that gives employees physical, mental and nutritional support, across its entire U.S. operations network by the end of 2021.
May 11, 2021: Amazon Pharmacy has launched two new prescription services. The first allows Prime members to search for their medications and compare costs at Amazon Pharmacy and more than 60,000 other retail pharmacies. The second allows Amazon Pharmacy customers to check their insurance copay before ordering their medication.
May 5, 2021: Amazon Care signed its first enterprise client, Precor.
May 2021: Amazon is considering building brick-and-mortar pharmacies, three anonymous sources close to the tech giant told Insider.
April 20, 2021: Amazon augmented Alexa's knowledge of COVID-19 so the device can connect users to nearby COVID-19 vaccine appointments.
April 12, 2021: Amazon is testing a hands-free voice interface for patient outcome reporting in medical research settings.
Amazon Web Services kicked off the next phase of its $20 million COVID-19 research and diagnostic tools development initiative.
April 9, 2021: Pittsburgh-based UPMC and Milwaukee-based Advocate Aurora Health are the two latest health systems to join Moving Health Home, a new healthcare coalition founded by Amazon Care, Salt Lake City-based Intermountain and St. Louis-based Ascension.
March 30, 2021: New Hyde Park, N.Y.-based Northwell Health is expanding a program to equip COVID-19 patients' rooms with Amazon Echo Show devices, which feature two-way video calling capabilities that let clinicians check on patients via video.
March 25, 2021: Amazon received emergency use authorization from the FDA for its COVID-19 testing kits, made by Amazon subsidiary STS Lab Holco.
March 17, 2021: Amazon is rolling out its virtual medical service Amazon Care for its employees in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., this summer, with plans to expand the offering to other employers later this year.
March 11, 2021: Amazon is opening health centers in five states to provide primary care to its employees.
March 10, 2021: Moving Health Home, a new healthcare coalition formed to expand home-based clinical care, added Amwell to the list of its founding members alongside Amazon Care, Intermountain, Ascension and others.
March 9, 2021: Amazon and the University of Washington in Seattle teamed up to develop a contactless way to screen for irregular heartbeats using Amazon's smart speaker Alexa.
Change Healthcare and Amazon Web Services announced they are launching a new data science-as-a-service offering that provides de-identified claims data integrated with social determinants of health for more robust data analytics and research on vulnerable patient populations.
March 3, 2021: Intermountain Healthcare, based Ascension and Amazon Care teamed up as founding members of a new healthcare coalition aimed at expanding home-based clinical care.
Feb. 25, 2021: Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh developed a new machine learning tool to be used in clinical forecasting, according to a study supported by Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.
Feb. 16, 2021: Amazon was in talks with the Biden administration to assist with the COVID-19 vaccine rollout. The retail giant had been pitching its IT and operations capabilities to help with vaccine distribution, such as coordinating and delivering doses to churches, clinics and corner pharmacies to reach more people.
Feb. 2, 2021: Jeff Bezos is stepping down from his post as CEO of Amazon and will transition to a leadership role on the company's board later this year.
Jan. 24, 2021: Amazon teamed up with Seattle-based health system Virginia Mason to establish a pop-up COVID-19 vaccination site.
Jan. 5, 2021: Clearwater, Fla.-based BayCare Health System began deploying Amazon Alexa devices in 2,500 rooms across its 14 hospitals.
Dec. 21, 2020: Amazon, CVS Health and Thermo Fisher Scientific formed a coalition focused on promoting employer-based COVID-19 testing as part of a national strategy to combat the pandemic.
Nov. 17, 2020: Amazon launched Amazon Pharmacy, a new online pharmacy allowing patients to purchase their prescriptions through the retail giant's website.
Nov. 11, 2020: Amazon Alexa launched a feature to help caregivers better monitor seniors who opt to age in place rather than move into nursing homes or assisted care facilities.
Nov. 2, 2020: A direct-to-consumer partnership between Centerville, Ohio-based consulting firm Healthcare Advisory Network and Wooster, Ohio-based national prescription and telemedicine program BasiCare Plus began offering memberships to zero-copay telemedicine with free prescription drugs through Amazon.
Oct. 12, 2020: Amazon teamed up with Carrier Global, a refrigeration and cold chain company, to improve how medicine, vaccines and other goods are moved and monitored globally.
Oct. 13, 2020: Amazon Web Services, Accenture and Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. entered into a strategic agreement to modernize Takeda's digital platforms and grow the company's data services.
Oct. 21, 2020: Newark, Del.-based ChristianaCare developed an Alexa skill for home health, dubbed Home Care Coach. It is a care plan delivered as a voice-driven capability, or skill, via Amazon's digital assistant Alexa. Providers can customize a patient's care plan, and then the patient can ask Alexa questions about the plan and prescriptions.
Sept. 24, 2020: BestBuy Health released a flip phone equipped with Amazon Alexa voice assistance and telehealth capabilities that help connect older adults to healthcare services.
Sept. 22, 2020: Amazon is scaling up its virtual medical clinic for employees by rolling out services to facilities beyond the Seattle area.
Aug. 27, 2020: Amazon launched its new health tracking device, Halo, the retail giant's first move into the wearables market.
July 14, 2020: Amazon said it plans to launch 20 health centers in five cities to provide primary care to employees.
July 6, 2020: Amazon's PillPack offers free delivery of prescriptions and over-the-counter medications to all customers, including both Prime and non-Prime members