How Amazon’s acquisition of One Medical will drive digitization in the health sector

Amazon’s acquisition of One Medical, a network of US clinics, has prompted a lot of speculation about the company’s interest in the healthcare industry.

The $3.9 billion buyout nets Amazon 188 offices and clinics in 72 US cities, among them Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington. One Medical was created to advance healthcare digitalization, and includes Google among its investors, and is offered by many companies as a health insurance alternative for their employees. The idea is to provide medical care through an app that facilitates not only video consultations, but also an appointment management that avoids the usual delays and waits, thus providing a more satisfactory and less stressful service experience.

The operation reflects Amazon’s interest in reinventing healthcare: after acquiring PillPack in 2018 to create a prescription delivery service, while also developing and expanding on-demand health provision, Amazon Care, buying a network of highly digitized clinics is a way of providing physical counterpart to a model that obviously needs it: the reinvention of healthcare will see the administrative (requests for analyses and tests, leaflets, results, etc.) go online, with a person-to-person doctor or specialist’s appointment only when necessary.