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NEW YORK, Aug. 25 (AP) Amazon is shutting down a hybrid virtual home care service it spent years developing, a surprising move that underscores the challenges it faces as it moves into health care.
The service, called Amazon Care, will end on Dec. 31, according to an email sent to employees by Amazon’s senior vice president of health services, Neil Lindsay.
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Amazon Care launched in 2019 for Seattle-based Amazon Washington state employees who were trial users before the company rolled out the service to workers in all 50 states last year.
The service virtually connects patients with doctors and nurses who can provide treatment 24 hours a day.It doesn’t have a physical location, but offers on-site services like vaccinations and flu testing in several cities, including Seattle and Washington, D.C.
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Amazon’s decision to stop using Amazon Care is all the more surprising given that the company said in February that it planned to expand in-person care services to 20 more cities. Last summer, Amazon also began offering the service to private employers across the country.
In an email to employees, Lindsay wrote that Amazon listened to employer feedback and worked to improve Amazon Care.
“However, despite these efforts, we have determined that Amazon Care is not the right long-term solution for our enterprise customers,” Lindsay wrote.
He added that Amazon Care “is not complete enough for the large enterprise customers we’ve been targeting, and it’s not going to work long-term.”
An Amazon spokesman declined to say how many people would lose their jobs as a result of the Amazon Care closure.
Amazon Care isn’t the company’s first failed health effort. The tech and retail giant is also involved in short-term partnerships with JPMorgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway to lower healthcare costs. The three corporate giants formed a separate company called Haven to focus on improving care and managing expenses, but disbanded last year.
Despite the setback, Amazon isn’t letting up its focus on healthcare. Last month, it announced plans to spend $3.9 billion to buy primary care organization One Medical, a membership-based service that offers virtual care and in-person visits. As of March, One Medical had approximately 767,000 members and 188 medical offices in 25 markets.
Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail, said Amazon is taking a more aggressive stance on getting out of things that aren’t bearing fruit, given that Amazon is now investing in other areas of health.
“The shutdown underscores how difficult it is to enter the health market,” Sanders said. “It’s a warning that Amazon’s efforts to restructure the industry, even through acquisitions, will be very difficult and potentially costly.” (The Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from the Syndicated News feed, the body of the content may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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