Big tech in healthcare: key thoughts on Amazon, Google and Walmart from 2 execs

Big tech companies like Amazon and Google have been slowly building a foundation in the healthcare space, bringing the consumer-centric approach to traditional healthcare processes and systems.

Over the past few weeks, Amazon launched a telemedicine service for its employees — some predict it's only a matter of time before similar services are available to the general public — and its Amazon Web Services deepened a relationship with Cerner as the EHR company's preferred cloud provider. Google also partnered with EHR provider Meditech and has become the cloud provider for Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic's EHR. 

What does this mean for healthcare and how will health systems respond? At the Becker's Hospital Review 5th Annual Health IT + Revenue Cycle Conference in Chicago, Cone Health CIO Ben Patel and Jefferson Health's Viraj Patwardhan discussed their views of big tech moving into healthcare.

"Amazon and Google are going to disrupt healthcare. They are going to use their relationship with the consumers to influence them and to disrupt the healthcare value chain," said Mr. Patel. "As of today, I don't think they have the whole complete solution established yet. But in the value-based care journey, they do have some values and incentives to provide. From that perspective, they are both a competitor and a partner."

Amazon aims to deliver retail services to patients, making them a competitor. However, it needs the expertise of healthcare industry veterans to make new projects successful. Other companies have taken a different approach.

"Google has the cloud, so they are democratizing access to all patient data and they are trying to use the cloud platform as an innovation to create good experiences. From a partner perspective, you have to figure out what you're partnering with each company on," said Mr. Patel. "Both offer more analytics, AI, algorithms, and they have figured out what value they provide and incorporate that value into your healthcare digital process."

On the consumer side, Amazon, Google and others are miles ahead of healthcare because they can deliver services to patients where they are.

"In healthcare, we expect the customers to come to us. When you are Amazon and Google, they will give you everything on the mobile phone or the TV, whenever you want," said Mr. Patwardhan.

Big tech isn't the only field disrupting healthcare; traditional retail companies are as well. Walmart, CVS and others have opened urgent care clinics within their facilities and have been finding new ways to become more integrated with healthcare providers. Walmart opened its first standalone clinic in September in Georgia and could move forward with further brick-and-mortar growth.

"The real sleeping giant in this whole story is Walmart and I think they have the size and scale, and the intention of providing everything at a lower price. I think they are the ones that we should be watching for."

Don't miss the Becker's 3rd Annual Health IT + Clinical Leadership + Pharmacy event in Chicago, May 19-21, 2020. Click here to learn more and register.

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