Amazon Care to stop operations from December 31

At the same time as it’s pushing deeper into the healthcare area (supplemented by the settlement to amass One Medical for about $3.9 billion in an all-cash deal), e-commerce behemoth Amazon has determined to close down Amazon Care, the well being service that was years within the making.

The corporate introduced the identical in an organization e mail to staff, including that despite having a superb run, the service was not the “proper long-term answer” for the corporate’s “enterprise clients.”

“This resolution wasn’t made flippantly and solely turned clear after many months of cautious consideration,” wrote Neil Lindsay, senior vice chairman of Amazon Well being Providers, within the e mail. “Though our enrolled members have cherished many features of Amazon Care, it’s not an entire sufficient providing for the big enterprise clients we have now been focusing on, and wasn’t going to work long-term.”

This marks the start of the top of Amazon Care, which is able to full its third yr earlier than closing the shutters completely after December 31. The (previously solely) digital well being service was initially used solely by Amazon’s staff in Seattle, who had been the trial customers earlier than the extra widespread launch.

Offering telemedicine providers by connecting medical doctors and sufferers and free telehealth consults, Amazon Care grew and developed to roll out throughout the US in February 2022. It additionally went on to supply in-person providers resembling vaccinations and flu testing in numerous cities.

The service expanded to incorporate in-person (and in-house) providers throughout a number of cities within the US – Seattle, Boston, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC to call just a few – and Amazon introduced its plans to increase it to over 20 cities over the yr. Therefore, Amazon’s resolution to tug the plug on what initially started as a service for its staff comes off as all of the extra stunning.

Lindsay assured the affected Amazon Care staff that they might be positioned in different jobs inside the e-commerce powerhouse, and that Amazon would “help staff searching for roles exterior of the corporate.”