Retail giant Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) is buying One Medical, a tech-enabled primary care provider, in a cash transaction valued at about $3.9 billion.
With the acquisition, Seattle-based Amazon is gaining a platform for users to schedule appointments, renew prescriptions and access health records. As of March 31, One Medical had about 767,000 members and a presence in 188 medical offices, according to its first-quarter earnings release.
San Francisco-based 1Life Healthcare Inc. is One Medical’s parent company.
The deal significantly deepens Amazon’s focus on health care, which Health Services Senior Vice President Neil Lindsay said is in need of “reinvention.”
“We see lots of opportunity to both improve the quality of the experience and give people back valuable time in their days,” Lindsay said in a press release about the deal. “Together with One Medical’s human-centered and technology-powered approach to health care, we believe we can and will help more people get better care, when and how they need it.”
The acquisition is also another sign that the so-called “Amazon-ification” of health care is accelerating. For senior living operators, Amazon’s expansion in the tech-enabled health care sector represents yet another potential point of disruption in the future.
The senior living industry is in the midst of a tech revolution of sorts, with residents and staff using new and innovative remote services during the pandemic. With a growing presence in remote health care, Amazon is increasingly involved in many of the same services that operators are looking to offer in their communities.
And with so many pieces of the health care puzzle in hand, it’s not hard to imagine a scenario in the not-too-distant future where Amazon expands its reach directly into long-term care or senior housing.
Juniper Communities CEO Lynne Katzmann has long seen the disruptive potential of Amazon in senior living. She sees the acquisition of One Medical as “another step on Amazon’s accelerating journey into health care,” and she believes that “the ability to consumerize health care is very much within Amazon’s reach.”
“While health care services and products are used across all of the age groups in the country, and worldwide for that matter, some of the most dependent and large-scale users are older adults,” she told Senior Housing News. “And I am sure that continuing to push into our market, now with primary care and meds, is an enticing vehicle for growth for Amazon.”
And senior living does seem to be on the minds of Amazon leadership. On Wednesday, the online retail giant announced a new contest with more than $45,000 in prizes for developers who can build new Alexa skills with functions that can aid older adults and senior living communities.
Amazon is also making inroads in senior living through its voice-activated Alexa technology and devices such as Echo. Last year, Atria Senior Living began deploying Echo devices using the Alexa Smart Properties offering. Other operators, including Eskaton, Life Care Services and Carlton Senior Living, have followed suit.
Amazon is also working with St. Louis-based health system Ascension on a home-based care policy alliance called Moving Health Home, which has a stated goal of “working to change federal and state policy to enable the home to be a clinical site of care,” according to its website.