Amazon has declared their intent to disrupt healthcare. Are you ready?
The $3.9 billon acquisition of One Medical positions Amazon to offer comprehensive primary care both through employee benefit programs and directly to individuals. With access to 188 medical offices in 25 U.S. markets that work with more than 8,000 companies, Amazon gains a direct-to-consumer health beachhead similar to the one Whole Foods gives them in fresh groceries. In combination with the PillPack acquisition (now Amazon Pharmacy) and the broad launch of Amazon Care (a telehealth platform for their and others’ employees), Amazon’s intent to disrupt the existing healthcare industry is clear.
Neil Lindsay, Amazon’s Senior Vice President of Health Services, told The Washington Post that “health care is in need of reinvention.” Or as my colleague and Brado co-founder Bob Cuneo says, “If you want to see the future, look for a mediocre experience.”
So, why should others in healthcare take notice? After all, Amazon has tried and failed with Haven, and this move by no means makes Amazon America’s doctor. One Medical’s $493 million in commercial revenue last year is less than 1% of total annual private sector spending on primary care in the U.S.
Here’s why it matters. Primary care refers to the first place you contact when something is wrong, the adviser you turn to for your family’s everyday needs. Done poorly, which it very often is, it’s a barrier and a hurdle: long waits to be seen, 15-minute drive-by appointments with a rotating cast of characters, time and money lost to commutes and parking, and so forth.
Done well — reinvented using the Amazon playbook for simplicity, self-service and selection, and the tools and processes One Medical honed as an innovator in “concierge care” — it can be the gatekeeper and a game changer. Optimized nationwide primary care would control the revenue, profits, and effectiveness of every other part of the healthcare system.
This potential for primary-care-based dominance is no secret. Aetna CVS Health and Optum (UnitedHealth Group) are fully in the chase to be the nation’s go-to for primary care, as are many other established and start-up players. Amazon’s entry accelerates the race.
For our part, Brado has applied our signature blend of empathy and data across the entire spectrum of healthcare — from providers to payers to pharma to devices to innovative services and platforms — and so, we have long understood that the “family health manager” yearns for the simplicity, clarity, and service levels that this deal promises.
Indeed, at ForeChange, the annual gathering of health system CEOs, innovators, and disruptors that Brado co-hosts with Santé Ventures and others, we have been discussing the prospect of reinvented primary care for over a decade. It began as academic speculation, but then rose like a thundercloud on the horizon…ominous, yet distant. Well, today it’s starting to rain. And the best health systems and employers have already put on umbrellas and their rain boots. They are building the competencies they need to thrive in a world of networked, unbundled care. They are focusing on the unique services and facilities that only they can operate. And they are looking to Amazon’s entry with optimism and an open hand of partnership.
These leaders have a ready response to the question that Brado asks all of our clients facing the tsunami-like wave of new in healthcare:
ARE YOU READY?
At Brado, we help brands get in front — in front of their customer’s wants, their competition, and our ever-changing world. We do it through insight-to-activation, digital-centric marketing. Every day we help healthcare brands, from startups to institutional icons, get in front. If your answer to our question gives you pause, we’re here to help.
The possibilities of what advertising can achieve has been dramatically increased with the digital revolution. But not all industries have caught up with these new possibilities. This post is targeted at healthcare marketers and provides them with a broad spectrum of ideas and tactics that are drawn from the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry – one of the first and most sophisticated practitioners of digital advertising.
Today’s Chief Marketing Officer is expected to do more and do better — even as the marketing paradigm itself is in rapid flux. This post identifies the resources and approaches that are now available to help this CMO “on the spot.” Read more below, or you can download the full PDF by clicking the button.
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“This strategic inflection point IS COVID-19. The fundamentals of business have or must change. Period.”
Brado’s Chief Transformation Officer, Andy Ford, recently spoke to healthcare leaders about Futures Thinking, and how it’s helping companies navigate obstacles and opportunities in COVID-propelled “tsunami of new.” In this video, Ford explains how he’s guiding companies to prepare for, rather than try to predict the future.
“The lens through which your healthcare system will be judged is mobile only,” announced Brado’s President of Digital Intelligence, A.J. Ghergich, at a recent meeting of healthcare leaders. It reflects the acceleration of Google’s announced plans to switch to mobile-first indexing on all websites, breaking at the end of this year from its past preference for desktop crawling. In this video, Ghergich offers a summary scorecard for healthcare’s mobile readiness.
The future just slammed into us
Telehealth techniques and applications have been on the discussion agenda for many years. As technology has progressed, so, too, has the use of this tool.
We are now seeing telemedicine advanced by a wide range of practitioners and health systems. Telemedicine effectively reaches into underserved and hard-to-reach areas, sometimes bringing a level of expertise and innovation that otherwise would be impossible. But the set of techniques and technologies summarized under this notion of telemedicine now include such varied applications as virtual office visits, remote monitoring and even collaborative, robot-assisted surgery.
It is a sad truth that major health crises – especially those provoked by war, natural disaster and pandemics – invariably stimulate healthcare to take giant strides forward. COVID-19 will be no different. And leaders in healthcare will want to get ahead of this inevitable change that is forging our new reality.
Enter the term “telemedicine” or “telehealth” into Google Trends and you will see a dramatic, even exponential spike upward over the past few weeks.
At Brado, our data scientists are charting the dimensions of the current inquiry and advances made with regard to telemedicine. The interactive exhibit below gives you a sense of both the depth and breadth of questions now being asked of Dr. Google on this important topic.
This landscape of inquiry or “database of human intentions” on this topic and others is proving useful to our clients, not only in developing on-point content and relevant jobs-to-done frameworks, but also as a powerful stimulus for innovation and customer experience improvements.
This interactive wheel is clickable and helps to interpret the data and findings by grouping the questions into common themes.
