Amazon has purchased a healthcare technology startup known as “Health Navigator”. Health Navigator, based in Chicago, Illinois, is a clinical healthcare information firm founded by an emergency medicine physician, Dr. David Thompson. Dr. Thompson is board certified in Emergency Medicine and Internal Medicine; his academic background includes the University of Illinois College of Medicine with a residency at McGaw Medical Center of Northwestern University. Health Navigator encompasses a deep selection of features which account for the core elements of patient care interaction and documentation: - After Care Instruction ( ACI ): provides health information and care advice for telehealth patients - Clinical Documentation Support ( CDS ): a telehealth dialogue tool orchestrating patient visit details including initial patient intake, emergency screening and prioritization, consumer-facing health checker or health bot, CarePath ( formulates questions for patients based on their initial reasons for health visit to begin diagnosis ), consumer e-visit form and provider documentation checklist - Coded Chief Complaints ( CCC ): supports definition, identification of patient’s primary reason for visit ( RFV ) seeking care - Diagnosis Engine: a proprietary knowledge-based inference engine or processor generating a list of possible causes or pre-diagnoses for a specific symptom or problem that can be aligned with digital health assistants (health bots, diagnosis symptom checkers) and electronic health records ( EHR or EMR ). - Natural Language Processing ( NLP ): a digital translator program used in patient and clinician dialogue for visit free-text into the Coded Chief Complaint clinical vocabulary - Non-Commercial Resource Database: features over 25,000 Internet resources comprised of non-commercial websites linked to more than 2,800 clinical concepts (plus over 7,200 references of which many are directly linked through a PubMedIC ) - Triage Engine: calculates a triage score, level of care recommendation ( disposition ) for use in consumer health bots and triage symptom checker applications As Amazon forges ahead, it will be interesting to see how its actions are reflected within the realm of Haven Healthcare, its healthcare management partnership initiative with Berkshire Hathaway ( NYSE: BRK.A ) and JPMorgan Chase ( NYSE: JPM ). The organization is seeking ways to improve quality of care while reducing cost. Read the article for the complete details of Amazon's latest acquisition and contact John Baresky for further information...

1. … The Amazon River, its tributaries and surrounding rainforest basin are home to more than 45
freshwater turtle and terrestrial tortoise species…
AMAZON EXPANDS HEALTHCARE
ENTERPRISE WITH ACQUISITION OF
HEALTH NAVIGATOR
Amazon ( NASDAQ: AMZN ) continues to trek forward into the
healthcare industry with another acquisition — undaunted by
Surescripts - John G. Baresky 10/24/19

2. Amazon’s healthcare acquisition and partnership
expansion continues…
Amazon has purchased a healthcare technology startup known as “Health
Navigator”. Health Navigator, based in Chicago, Illinois, is a clinical
healthcare information firm founded by an emergency medicine physician,
Dr. David Thompson. Dr. Thompson is board certified in Emergency
Medicine and Internal Medicine; his academic background includes
the University of Illinois College of Medicine with a residency at McGaw
Medical Center of Northwestern University.
… A healthcare tech startup with multiple capabilities and intriguing
attributes …
Some of the key elements as to why Health Navigator is so powerful
and why Amazon selected it
There is an array of patient care documentation and medical software
solutions in the healthcare marketplace. Many are too narrowly focused on
one aspect of the patient care experience or medical specialty, others
feature clusters and subsets of what is involved in wider patient care but
nothing that can be considered comprehensive. More than one of them is
required to form a complete suite of solutions which means clinicians like
nurses, nursing assistants, physician assistants, doctors and other have to
toggle back and forth between them. This makes for a cumbersome process
for each patient visit and contributes to cost, care and training issues; it
presents further issues when considered for telehealth applications.
Health Navigator encompasses a deep selection of features which account
for the core elements of patient care interaction and documentation:
• After Care Instruction ( ACI ): provides health information and care
advice for telehealth patients
• Clinical Documentation Support ( CDS ): a telehealth dialogue tool
orchestrating patient visit details including initial patient intake,
emergency screening and prioritization, consumer-facing health

3. checker or health bot, CarePath ( formulates questions for patients
based on their initial reasons for health visit to begin diagnosis ),
consumer e-visit form and provider documentation checklist
• Coded Chief Complaints ( CCC ): supports definition, identification
of patient’s primary reason for visit ( RFV ) seeking care
• Diagnosis Engine: a proprietary knowledge-based inference
engine or processor generating a list of possible causes or pre-
diagnoses for a specific symptom or problem that can be aligned
with digital health assistants (health bots, diagnosis symptom
checkers) and electronic health records ( EHR or EMR ).
• Natural Language Processing ( NLP ): a digital translator program
used in patient and clinician dialogue for visit free-text into the
Coded Chief Complaint clinical vocabulary
• Non-Commercial Resource Database: features over 25,000
Internet resources comprised of non-commercial websites linked
to more than 2,800 clinical concepts (plus over 7,200 references of
which many are directly linked through a PubMedIC )
• Triage Engine: calculates a triage score, level of care
recommendation ( disposition ) for use in consumer health bots
and triage symptom checker applications
Health Navigator’s features are highly refined with a robust CCC
The CCC rhetoric is precisely detailed, available in eight languages and
spans over 470 chief complaints — this empowers Health Navigator to
account for over 99% of patient reasons for their healthcare visit. The meta
data it is comprised of includes:
• Unique ID
• ICD10-CM, SNOMED coding
• Acuity (severity)

4. • Type (e.g., Symptom, Injury-Trauma, Disease, Treatment,
Exposure)
• System (e.g., Gastrointestinal, Respiratory)
• Clinical documentation element
• Should an image be uploaded? (i.e., e-Visit intake, Telemedicine)
The platform has multiple uses which Amazon can apply for their own
use or build out for commercial purposes for customers
Health Navigator works with these and other applications or functional
providers:
• Answering Services
• Digital Health Assistants
• Electronic Health Records ( EHR / EMR )
• Medical Call Centers
• Telemedicine
Some of Health Navigator’s current client partners include Avizia, MDLIVE,
Microsoft, NextGen and Rush Medical.
Amazon plans to put Health Navigator to work on its Amazon Care
employee medical program
As part of their enterprise-wide rollout internally and externally of healthcare
innovation, Amazon will be deploying Health Navigator within its recently
launched Amazon Care employee healthcare provider program. Presently,
Amazon Care is available only to its headquarters employees. Health
Navigator could be a building block for them to expand the program to more
or all of their employees nationwide.

5. Amazon is undaunted by the issues Surescripts has presented its
PillPack online mail order pharmacy business with
Between its agreement with Oasis Medical ( a family practice organization
based in Seattle, WA ) to serve as a provider for its Amazon Care employee
health program, the acquisition of Health Navigator and its partnerships with
the Pittsburgh Health Data Alliance and Cerner, Amazon is not deterred from
its healthcare mission despite the ongoing issue with its PillPack online mail
order pharmacy unit and Surescripts.
Conceivably Amazon may be developing a solution to circumvent the
roadblock Surescripts put in front of it by discontinuing data access to
Amazon’s partner ReMyHealth on grounds it violated privacy and access
terms within their contract. As Amazon builds out its Amazon Care program
for employees ( which features a pharmacy benefit ) and potentially plans to
commercialize the model on a larger scale for customers, it can weigh in
on Surescripts’ trial proceedings with the FTC and further support
ReMyHealth’s position. If ReMyHealth’s access to the Surescripts data is not
restored, Amazon / PillPack could also contract directly with Surescripts but
this has not been proposed publicly by Amazon / PillPack.
Moving Forward
As Amazon forges ahead, it will be interesting to see how its actions are
reflected within the realm of Haven Healthcare, its healthcare management
partnership initiative with Berkshire Hathaway ( NYSE: BRK.A )
and JPMorgan Chase ( NYSE: JPM ). The organization is seeking ways to
improve quality of care while reducing cost.
Amazon is clearly investing a considerable amount of staff, financial and
technical resources to support its own employee medical care program as
well as develop commercial opportunities for the future. It is navigating
multiple channels in healthcare, developing partnerships and making
strategic acquisitions which for now are submerged threats to unsuspecting,
less strategic competitors.

6. Thank you for reading this article. Check out my other stories about
healthcare mergers and acquisitions, clinical and commercial
developments, medical technology, healthcare brand and product
management, digital marketing strategy, social media and market
access strategy…
About me
I lead healthcare marketing initiatives spanning pharmaceutical, medical
device technology, clinical programs, health services, healthcare RPA (
robotic process automation ), software, SaaS and managed care. My
background covers team building, digital marketing, brand and product
management, content development, content marketing, upstream and
downstream marketing and market access strategy.
Connect with me at LinkedIn, Twitter, Email or my website
LinkedIn:
John G. Baresky
Twitter:
John G. Baresky Healthcare Marketing Guy
Email:
Email: JGB7908@gmail.com
Website:
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