If Amazon follows through with plans to build clinics for its workers, it would join a parade of large employers putting health centers at the worksite.
The first Amazon clinic would be at its Seattle headquarters, according to CNBC, which said the online retailer “is starting small with a pilot, but is looking to expand the effort early next year.”
Other employers are further along than Amazon with one-third of employers with at least 5,000 workers now offering “a general medical clinic to their employees,” Mercer ’s 2017 National Survey of Employer-Sponsored Plans shows. That’s a big jump from five years when only 24% of large employers offered medical clinics for their workers and just 15% a decade ago, Mercer data shows.
Exactly what Amazon comes up with is captivating the employer community and the healthcare industry given Amazon is pushing deeper into the healthcare space on several fronts. Jeff Bezos’ Amazon, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase & Company announced in January plans to create an “independent company” to improve healthcare and lower costs for their more than one million employees.
Amazon and its partners also hired Dr. Atul Gawande to lead the new company and he’s known for his efforts to promote value-based medical care and population health to make sure people get treated in the right place, at the right time and with the right amount of care. Worksite clinics would be in keeping with the mission of Gawande’s Ariadne Labs where he’s been founding executive director of an organization that says its mission “is to create scalable health care solutions that deliver better care at the most critical moments of people’s lives, everywhere.”
The first Amazon clinic would be at its Seattle headquarters, according to CNBC, which said the online retailer “is starting small with a pilot, but is looking to expand the effort early next year.”
Other employers are further along than Amazon with one-third of employers with at least 5,000 workers now offering “a general medical clinic to their employees,” Mercer ’s 2017 National Survey of Employer-Sponsored Plans shows. That’s a big jump from five years when only 24% of large employers offered medical clinics for their workers and just 15% a decade ago, Mercer data shows.
Exactly what Amazon comes up with is captivating the employer community and the healthcare industry given Amazon is pushing deeper into the healthcare space on several fronts. Jeff Bezos’ Amazon, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase & Company announced in January plans to create an “independent company” to improve healthcare and lower costs for their more than one million employees.
Amazon and its partners also hired Dr. Atul Gawande to lead the new company and he’s known for his efforts to promote value-based medical care and population health to make sure people get treated in the right place, at the right time and with the right amount of care. Worksite clinics would be in keeping with the mission of Gawande’s Ariadne Labs where he’s been founding executive director of an organization that says its mission “is to create scalable health care solutions that deliver better care at the most critical moments of people’s lives, everywhere.”
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