Digital healthcare is a stratospheric 3.5 trillion dollar market in the US alone. A huge business where Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Apple are ready to enter. But where the technology of Pharmaself24 can also play an important role.
Just scroll through the titles of the major economic networks and technology magazines to dispel any doubt: Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Apple are pushing to enter the digitalization of care services and deeply shake the structure of the industry.
Today the healthcare sector is the most important in the world in terms of size and potential growth with a few players taking the lion’s share, but with consumers who have more and more expectations also due to the movement of medicine towards home and territory.
In such a scenario, big techs don’t stand by.
They multiply the hiring of luminaries, invest in the launch of new companies, register hundreds of patents and forge partnerships with leading pharmaceutical companies.
Naturally, each cultivates ambitions connected to its core business.
Amazon is interested in cloud computing and online pharmacy, Google is interested in data management personal medical records and analysis, Microsoft to Information Technology and Apple to selling iPhones and watches.
Amazon
Amazon is the player with the greatest ambitions and the highest potential for disruption in the industry. The first step was the partnership with Berkshire Hathaway and J.P. Morgan Chase to guarantee the employees of the three companies – over one million – health coverage at reasonable prices.
The second line of intervention is the online pharmacy. In mid-2018 Amazon purchased for over $ 1 billion Pillpack, a company that ships medicines to patients who take more drugs during the day.
The third line is cloud computing for healthcare and clinical laboratories powered by AWS, AmazonWeb Services. Software has been developed that extracts from medical records and notes of patients the useful information to doctors and hospitals to help them from diagnosis to treatment.
The internet company develops businesses related to big data – one third of all global data is related to healthcare – and artificial intelligence: no one has invested so much in research and in fact between 2013 and 2017 supported projects that led to 186 new patents.
He also carried out studies on longevity with Calico, on telemedicine and on biomedical equipment collaborating with AstraZeneca for cardiovascular diseases and Sanofi for diabetes.
Finally, Google works with artificial intelligence which plays a fundamental role in robot-assisted surgery, it is no coincidence that both virtual reality and augmented reality are now more and more used for the training of surgeons.
Microsoft
Microsoft opened the Healthcare division in 2017 to explore the potential of AI and cloud computing in order to simplify the entry of clinical data for doctors and hospitals, standardize sharing and transform them into easily usable information.
It also struck a 7-year deal with the giant Walgreens Boots Alliance to bring the Azure cloud platform in the retailer chain and in fact in 2019 they opened 12 digital health pilots corner to sell biomedical devices and appliances competing with Amazon.
With Healthcare NExT he then launched the Health Partner Alliance with the aim to reduce hospitalizations, improve early diagnosis, help the chronically ill live by monitoring them from home rather than in the facility.
Apple
The company led by Tim Cook has chosen to leverage the iPhone and Apple Watch to offer one platform to use health-related apps: first with HealthKit and now with CareKit and ResearchKit to collect personal data to share with doctors and insurance companies.
The latest Apple Watch launched on the market not only tests the amount of oxygen in the blood but it is also able to carry out an electrocardiogram, report if there are any irregularities heart rhythm and monitor sleep quality for a healthier life.
Pharmaself24
We are aware that the pharmaceutical business has changed not only due to presence increasingly intrusive of large technology companies, but also because the competition of online competitor day by day tougher. On top of this consumers themselves are now used to shopping at any time of the day or night.
That is why an automatic prescription dispenser allowing patient to collect medicines 24 hours a day, quickly and without queuing, making you live an online shopping experience is absolutely matching today’s habits. The Pharmaself24 is a unique technology for helping the community pharmacy to compete with the new big players: by improving the service to patient and bringing efficiency in the dispensing process the community pharmacy can win.
The Pharmaself24 has digitized the supply of medicines, catching the requests of pharmacists who need innovative tools to face the new challenges of the market, but at the same time meeting the habits of consumers of the twenty-first century.
Source: Article by Morena Pivetti appeared in the May 2019 issue of Fortune Italia.
