USA- Retail giant Amazon has decided that its Amazon Care primary healthcare services weren’t “the right long-term solution for our enterprise customers ” and will discontinue providing them at the end of this year.
“This decision wasn’t made lightly and only became clear after many months of careful consideration,” said Neil Lindsay, Amazon Health Services senior vice president, in an email to Amazon Health Services employees.
She noted that although their enrolled members have loved many aspects of Amazon Care, it is not a complete enough offering for the large enterprise customers we have been targeting and wasn’t going to work long-term.
The number of employees who would be impacted by the closure of Amazon Care was not made public by the firm.
In the message to staff, Lindsay stated that many Care employees would have the chance to join different Amazon teams or divisions of the Health Services organization.
In addition, Lindsay added, “we’ll also support employees looking for roles outside of the company.”
Given that Amazon is now investing in other health-related areas, according to Neil Saunders, managing director at GlobalData Retail, the company is taking a more aggressive approach to abandoning businesses that are not producing results.
In 2019, Amazon Care made its debut as a trial program for staff members in the Seattle region, where Amazon is based. The nation’s non-Amazon personnel were added last year.
It combines virtual, at-home primary care with urgent care services; there are no actual clinics or locations involved.
Following its $753 million purchase of the prescription-by-mail startup PillPack in 2018, the business introduced its Amazon Pharmacy service in November 2020.
Amazon claims that prior to and independently of its plan to acquire primary care provider One Medical for $3.9 billion, which was announced on July 21, company officials assessed that the Amazon Care business model wasn’t functioning.
Chrissy Farr, a health tech investor at OMERS Ventures, said there may have been potential overlap with One Medical “that may have been awkward to navigate.” One Medical also sells into employers and offers telemedicine services.
“It could be a signal of where Amazon plans to focus its energies,” Farr said, noting that she did not have first-hand knowledge of the reasons for the decision.
Given that Amazon is now investing in other health-related areas, according to Neil Saunders, managing director at GlobalData Retail, the company is taking a more aggressive approach to abandoning businesses that are not producing results.
“The closure underlines how hard making inroads into the health market is,” Saunders said. “It serves as a warning that even with acquisitions, Amazon’s bid to shake up the sector will be incredibly difficult and possibly expensive.”
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