Nov 22, 2019 Palo Alto / CA / USA - Close up of Amazon logo and Smile symbol at one of their corporate offices located in Silicon Valley, San Francisco bay area.

One Medical Acquisition: The Path Forward

This piece has been adapted slightly from its original form, which was published at On the Flying Bridge on July 24, 2022.

By Michael Greeley

Last week’s $3.9 billion acquisition of One Medical (NASDAQ: ONEM) by Amazon triggered significant hyperventilating about the transformative and immediate impact of this transaction on the health care industry. Interestingly, Amazon’s market capitalization increased 1.4% or $18.3 billion on the day of the announcement, paying for the purchase a few times over. Undoubtedly there could be exciting near-term benefits for the 750,000 ONEM members as their Amazon Prime accounts are linked to their ONEM memberships, facilitating targeted Whole Food and Amazon Pharmacy coupons. But what we might expect to see over time is a provocative debate with powerful implications for how each of us manage the arc of our health care journeys.
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Illustration of multicolored profiles. An overlay of strings of ones and zeroes is visible

We Need to Do More with Hospitals’ Data, But There Are Better Ways

By Wendy Netter Epstein and Charlotte Tschider

This May, Google announced a new partnership with national hospital chain HCA Healthcare to consolidate HCA’s digital health data from electronic medical records and medical devices and store it in Google Cloud.

This move is the just the latest of a growing trend — in the first half of this year alone, there have been at least 38 partnerships announced between providers and big tech. Health systems are hoping to leverage the know-how of tech titans to unlock the potential of their treasure troves of data.

Health systems have faltered in achieving this on their own, facing, on the one hand, technical and practical challenges, and, on the other, political and ethical concerns.

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a home hub featuring icons of all the tasks it can assist with in a thinking cloud

Exploring Elder Care Robotics: Voice Assistants and Home Hubs

This article is part of a four-part series that researches how robotics are being developed for aging care and investigates their ethical implications. In our first article, we explored emotional companion robots, which soothe and comfort patients experiencing loneliness, depression, or diseases such as Alzheimer’s. Today, we look at voice assistants and home hubs—robots designed to coordinate and simplify daily tasks around the house. 

What are Voice Assistants and Home Hubs?

Unlike other robots in this series, you are probably familiar with voice assistants and home hubs. These robots, which include Amazon Echo, Google Home, Apple Siri, Samsung Ballie, and Nest, respond to human commands (voice, motion, or input) to complete tasks like preheating the oven, playing a podcast, or refilling a prescription. Several devices also incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) to learn household patterns and anticipate needs.  However, unlike social robots (covered later in this series), voice assistants do not proactively engage with users unless programmed or commanded.   Read More

Photograph from above of a health care provider taking a patient's blood pressure.

Diving Deeper into Amazon Alexa’s HIPAA Compliance

By Adriana Krasniansky

Earlier this year, consumer technology company Amazon made waves in health care when it announced that its Alexa Skills Kit, a suite of tools for building voice programs, would be HIPAA compliant. Using the Alexa Skills Kit, companies could build voice experiences for Amazon Echo devices that communicate personal health information with patients. 

Amazon initially limited access to its HIPAA-updated voice platform to six health care companies, ranging from pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) to hospitals. However, Amazon plans to expand access and has identified health care as a top focus area. Given Thursday’s announcement of new Alexa-enabled wearables (earbuds, glasses, a biometric ring)—likely indicators of upcoming personal health applications—let’s dive deeper into Alexa’s HIPAA compliance and its implications for the health care industry.
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