Posted on 08/21/2018 10:10:12 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Online retail giant Amazon has made another splash into the healthcare pond by hiring cardiologist Maulik Majmudar, MD, .
Majmudar, who announced he will be moving to “an exciting and challenging role” at Amazon via Twitter, is associate director of the Healthcare Transformation Lab at Massachusetts General Hospital and a lecturer at MIT.
The new hire comes at a time when healthcare executives are beginning to see Amazon as a potential competitor and disruptor in the field, according to a recent survey.
Majmudar did not specify the exact nature of the work he will be doing at Amazon, adding to the growing curiosity around the company’s forays into healthcare.
“The one and only reason I am taking on this opportunity, is the possibility of making a truly meaningful impact on the health and well-being of hundreds of millions of individuals throughout the world,” he said in a tweet.
Amazon has been on a tear of both acquisitions and ground-up efforts to enter the healthcare space. Most recently, the company acquired PillPack, an online pharmacy, for an estimated $1 billion. It also launched its own over-the-counter medicine business and is rumored to soon open a medical products and device pilot with two hospital networks. Furthermore, the company has taken the health of its employees in into its own hands by opening up care clinics in Seattle, Amazon’s headquarters, and launching a new entity with Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase to tackle healthcare costs.
Amazon’s potential impact
Despite having little information about the entire scope of Amazon’s healthcare ambitions, industry executives still identify the company as a disruptor, according to a survey from Reaction Data that garnered responses from nearly 100 healthcare executives.
Of the respondents, 75 percent of CEOs said they thought Amazon would make the biggest splash of the new entrants in the field. Nearly two-thirds of all respondents, who were mostly C-suite executives, said Amazon would have the biggest impact. Apple, Google and Microsoft trailed Amazon as other top new entrants.
“Amazon has a huge market they can use to distribute materials. They are already a household name and the users are not specific to Apple or Android,” one unnamed CEO quoted in the study said.
While all eyes appear to be on Amazon, “there’s no question that companies such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, and even Walmart are investing significant time and money into the healthcare space,” Reaction Data concluded.
Among emerging technologies in the field, 29 percent of execs said telemedicine will have the biggest impact. Close behind, 20 percent said artificial intelligence will have the biggest impact. Microsoft, Google and Apple all have recent initiatives aimed at development of AI, the survey said.
“These three (AI, mobile, telehealth), particularly when used in tandem, can analyze and evaluate the status of a patient from anywhere, at any time, and transmit that data back to a provider who can then communicate recommendations to patients on their mobile devices,” a chief nursing officer was quoted in the survey.
Then when you're at the doctor's office and he is looking at the computer screen, you notice that he is getting advice from the amazon doctor, as well as looking at the latest stuff you bought.
Megalomaniac Bezos expanding into healthcare is bad news, no matter how much people love the convenience of Amazon.
Right. Leave it to the government. It knows best. Like when to terminate you.
I didn’t write or even imply anything about that.
Bezos or the Feds, you are insane if you want either one of them in control of your healthcare.
Can you articulate exactly why?
Amazon has benefitted my life significantly by expanding the consumer choices available in my little rural town and by putting downward pressure on prices which stretches my income.
If Bezos can increase the quality of health care while holding costs in check my hat is off to him.
So far I have seen very few negatives from Amazon.
And, I do not worry too much about a monopoly. There are lots of competitors on the internet.
All you have to do is examine what Bezos stands for outside of Amazon. He is a rabid Deep State supporter and player.
In my opinion, he is a socialist elitist who dreams of himself as the absolute controller of all world commerce.
He is even working the legislature and bureaucrats to have Amazon to become the sole, no-bid supplier of everything from computers to copy paper to toilet paper to the federal government. They already pay him hundreds of millions of dollars to provide their data storage in the ‘cloud’.
He bought the Washington Post not to make a profit from it but to influence political actions and social opinion.
Lots more.
I was a big fan of his and Amazon in the early days, but as I began to understand his real agenda, I began seeing him as an enemy of capitalism, not an icon of it.
Don’t take my word for it. Do a little research into the things he has done and what he says, and try to read between the lines.
How is that bad? Who else is taking up the challenge? Are you?
DJT needs to create an environment where many potential providers will step up, not just AMZN/BRK/JPM.
Evil Bezos is even more dangerous than the Govt .
Just look at the Crony Socialism Bezos pushes everyone day on his Newsletter the Compost ! We live in dangerous times with evil like Bezos lurking around healthcare to destroy . He has laid waste to retail.
What reality do you leave in ?
Do you want a crony capitalist who wants to destroy all the competition run your healthcare .
You want a leftists like Bezo in-charge of your healthcare ?
Seriously?
The last time someone "destroyed retail" it was Walmart. In 20 years someone else is going to destroy Amazon, or at least give them a good run for their money. You may have noticed that Walmart is roaring back to life now that Trump has revitalized the economy.
Do you want a crony capitalist who wants to destroy all the competition run your healthcare .
When he started Amazon, Bezos was a bit player, not a "crony capitalist". The company got big because Bezos was smarter than the competition. I know, I was there. I used to buy stuff on line back in the days of dial up modems. Back in those days, Amazon was not the go-to vendor for anything except books.
You want a leftists like Bezo in-charge of your healthcare ?
Leaving his politics out of it, if he can do for medical care what he did for retail, the answer is YES!! and faster please.
I don't ask my Dr. what his politics are even though they may be completely different from mine. Do you refuse to see liberal doctors?
I had a heart attack a few months ago. The thought of asking the guys putting stents into my arteries who they voted for and their stand on gun control never entered my mind. The only thing I thought about was: "Hey, this is pretty good. Lying here on a table with 3 docs and a few nurses trying to save my life, and preserve enough heart muscle so I can be active again."
If 5 years from now an Amazon drone flies into the operating room and delivers the latest stent, in exactly the right size, saving 20% because there is a central inventory instead of local, I am all for it. Or maybe the stent the drone flies in is Amazon's house brand instead of some big-name pharmaceutical company. And the price is 40% lower because they sell the same thing all over the world. Plus production costs are down because volume is up since so many more people can afford it.
I want government out of my health care, TN just passed a OPIOID DATA BASE LAW, VIOLATES HIPPA, 1, 2, 4, 8, and 10th US CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS, as any one can Access not just LEO or your Doctor. So when I ask for the LOUSY 3 days of pain Med for getting 10 Teeth pulled on the 27th, I will be lucky that is usually a 10 script of low Dose NORCO. Next pain med will be raiding husband’s bottle of Scotch. GASTRO says he’s limited by CDC GUIDELINES NOT LAW, to 5 days for Major GI surgery.
TO bad government provides it. Medicare/Tricare Life, totally Dictate what care, what test, when, and where you can get daily meds. Only exception is an antibiotic that suddenly is needed, and then it has to be a pharmacy that will take Tricare. Dental does not exist, nor hearing, nor vision, with the exception of eye diseases.
AND THE STUPID GOP Rep steve stiver WANTS TO GUT MEDICARE MORE THAN OBAMA DID, AND SS. THEY DO KISS MIDTERMS GOP GAINS GOODBYE, THEY WILL LOSE BOTH HOUSES. Do You remember they got greedy with pork projects, and the voters kicked them out GWB’s first Midterm. READ how stupid he is!
Yeah I know both are Ponzy schemes, but those are MY TAX $$ that went into those funds. They are not Entitlements.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/20/gop-rep-steve-stivers-urges-medicare-social-security-reform.html
Bezo is a left wing crony capitalist .
Nothing more .
As bad as Obamacare or Socialized Med.
Heck I already have dictatorship care....Medicare/Tricare Life (ret. Military over 65) telling me where, what, and when. With no right of appeal if they don’t have a med I can take. Discontinued Nexium, left the 3 on that I react to. I take 40 mg a day, the OTC crap is 28 days at 20 mg. So I have to buy double plus an extra box every month. Generic has less of the main med in them. Even a letter from the Gastro stating need got declined.
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