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5 Amazon Predictions in The Future of Medicine

Attention FWD Team / Feb 2, 2018
Health
The latest from the future-already-happening department

You may have seen this week’s news that Amazon is making its first major moves in healthcare, sending the stocks of Jeff Bezos’ likely competitors sharply down. (Marketwatch, Jan 31, 2018).

Clearly Wall Street is now realizing what a major threat the biggest tech companies ​pose to incumbents in the healthcare sector.

But of course, you saw this coming – in the Future of Medicine report, published nearly 6 months ago with the Jacobs Institute, we explored multiple scenarios anticipating Amazon’s entry.

1. Solving the Puzzle

Today, it’s patients choosing to get care down in Pittsburgh—or at Walmart. Soon, as the report warns, it’ll be national and global health brands reaching out to our patient population with virtual care. The same way Amazon has run roughshod over retailers’ business models, it—or Google, or Apple—could suddenly turn healthcare on its head by digitizing medicine at scale.

Our Prediction

2. Virtual Destruction

In Japan, Amazon is already doing same-day drug delivery to your home or office.

Our prediction

3. Virtual Destruction

We won’t be having patients come into offices. A layer of healthcare will emerge that’s a lot like interacting with Amazon. Whether or not a human is on the other side won’t matter. Drugs will be shipped to you by Uber.

Josh Makower

New Enterprise Associates

Our Prediction

4. Virtual Destruction / Disintermediators

Don’t be surprised if companies that succeed get bought by Silicon Valley giants. The EHR industry lives in fear of a future where Amazon Web Services becomes the dominant hosting service. But that may just be a first step. According to recent international surveys, one-third of people would bank with Facebook, Amazon and Google if those services were offered. They likely feel the same about their health services. While Google has invested in clinical data diagnosis and longevity research, Amazon is already hiring to deliver healthcare programs—incubating the project for Amazon employees, then opening parts up to the world. Apple is also making a big push into healthcare with its HealthKit, ResearchKit and CareKit software frameworks, and recently hired telemedicine superstar Sumbul Desai away from Stanford.

OUR PREDICTION

5. Data Wars / The Road from EHR to UHR–Universal Health Records

THE SILICON VALLEY GIANTS Amazon, Google and Apple are all invading the healthcare space, and will continue to make acquisitions that help patients gradually take control of their own data and understand their own health choices. Upstarts who provide a path toward true interoperability, like CrossChx, makers of universal patient-ID software, will be likely targets. But these giants will be very careful not to make a misstep in the high-stakes healthcare arena that could potentially destroy their reputation. EHRs will need to be able to read and write to patients’ “health wallets,” but don’t expect the Silicon Valley giants to make the software that runs hospitals.

Our Prediction

Forces of Change

We’ve identified over 200 technological and social currents we see shaping the future. Forces of Change are significant drivers in the food, sports, and healthcare industries.

See all Forces of Change

smartphone-canopy
Smartphone Canopy

By 2020, 7 billion people will be connected to the internet. 5th-generation wireless coverage gives the world untethered connectivity at the speeds necessary for streaming immersive virtual reality at 60 frames per second.

robotics
Robotics

Miniaturization of robotic instruments will aid in highly complicated or repetitive surgeries, while replacing humans in data-driven procedures like radiology and anesthesiology. Robots will not lead to massive layoffs, but we will need fewer people in healthcare over time, as is the case in almost every industry. At hospitals, robots can clean rooms, transport patients, pick up laundry and deliver medicine.

blockchain
Blockchain

The future of security is splintering data into infinite fragments stored all over the world. Each fragment is meaningless on its own. The index is kept in unhackable blockchains.

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