Amazon’s nationwide telehealth service, known as Amazon Care, is now adding in-person home nursing services to its offerings.
Amazon Care in-home visits are currently available in Seattle, Baltimore, Boston, Dallas, Austin, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., and Arlington. In 2022, the company plans to expand into twenty additional cities, including San Francisco, Miami, Chicago, and New York City.
“Patients are tired of a health care system that doesn’t put them first. Our patient-centric service is changing that, one visit at a time,” said Kristen Helton, director of Amazon Care, in a statement. “We’ve brought our on-demand urgent and primary care services to patients nationwide. As we grow the service, we’ll continue to work with our customers to address their needs.”
Amazon first launched its telehealth service in 2019 but only offered it to Amazon employees and their families who were located in Seattle, Washington by partnering with a Washington state-based company called Oasis Medical Group. The company then made plans to expand coverage to other employees.
The first inklings of the idea’s implementation began in 2018 when Amazon purchased the online pharmacy, PillPack, shifting its weight into the healthcare business. In early 2019, Amazon also partnered with six different healthcare organizations interested in developing Alexa skills capable of handling patient information.
According to their press release, Amazon Care offers immediate access to a wide variety of primary and urgent care services such as COVID-19 and flu testing, vaccinations, treatment of illnesses and injuries, preventative care, sexual health care, and prescription refill requests.
Additionally, the company has stated that when issues cannot be resolved over video, Amazon Care will dispatch a nurse practitioner to a patient’s home to provide additional care in person, performing services ranging from routine blood draws to listening to a patient’s lungs.
To be eligible to use the service, patients must be enrolled in an employer’s health care plan that includes Amazon Care as a benefit.