Amazon Acquires Digital Health Firm Health Navigator to Enhance Its Intelligent Healthcare Platform

On October 28, 2019, VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat) learned from foreign media reports that Amazon announced the acquisition of Health Navigator, a digital health startup based in Chicago. Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Following the completion of this acquisition, Health Navigator will be integrated into Amazon Care Services, Amazon’s virtual medical clinic. This transaction marks Amazon’s second healthcare-related acquisition, following its $750 million purchase of the online pharmacy PillPack last year.

Health Navigator, founded in 2014 and headquartered in Chicago, USA, is a digital health startup. Established by David Thompson, M.D., the company is dedicated to telemedicine, electronic health records (EHR), answering services, and healthcare systems, providing solutions for insurance companies, medical call centers, and other institutions.

Health Navigator’s platform features a suite of intelligent tools that leverage natural language processing to capture user needs and deliver care recommendations to consumers and healthcare providers. The company provides critical technical support to the healthcare and clinical sectors, setting standards for digital health and care quality.

Health Navigator’s intelligent tools can be used to develop symptom checkers, health bots, and telemedicine applications, thereby enhancing consumer engagement and improving the healthcare experience. These software services all integrate with robust application programming interfaces, such as APIs and RESTful web services.

Amazon was founded in 1994 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington, USA. It is the largest online e-commerce company in the United States. The company primarily provides a trading platform for consumers, sellers, and content creators, and is one of the earliest companies to engage in e-commerce operations. Amazon went public on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange in May 1997, under the stock ticker symbol AMZN.

In recent years, Amazon has increasingly focused on the healthcare sector, launching a proprietary virtual medical clinic, Amazon Care Services, for its employees and their families. The service primarily provides online primary care and personal health services. Amazon Care Services introduced a mobile application called Oasis Medical, through which users can seek health consultations and online medical visits, with professional healthcare personnel evaluating and treating their conditions.

Currently, the Amazon Care Services platform is available exclusively to Amazon employees. For patients requiring follow-up care, the platform dispatches mobile care nurses to Amazon campuses or to patients’ homes within its service areas. These nurses collect patient tissue samples, perform on-site streptococcus testing, conduct physical examinations, and administer routine vaccinations. Additionally, Amazon Care Services employs care couriers who deliver prescribed medications and other medical products to patients during care visits.

(Compiled by Xu Xiaoxue)