September 27, 2019 | The Los Angeles Times

Amazon Care May be to Health Care What Amazon Prime is to Shopping

When Amazon joined Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase last year in establishing a joint venture aimed at overhauling the U.S. healthcare system, people could only guess as to what the three corporate behemoths had in mind.

The picture is now clearer, or at least it seems to be.

While the joint venture, dubbed Haven, remains largely shrouded in mystery, Amazon’s announcement this week that it will test an app-based approach to treatment on a limited number of employees is an indication of where Haven may be heading.

Amazon unveiled what it calls Amazon Care on a website. It describes the service as “a mobile application that allows you to access virtual and in-person healthcare services.”

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Amazon’s size, technical expertise and laser focus on using data to expand its business opportunities could change everything.

“It makes a difference when a firm like Amazon, with its scale and reach, does something like this,” said David Asch, executive director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Health Care Innovation.

“It’s hard not to think that pretty soon Amazon will be doing this for everyone,” he said.

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