One Rational Expectation For Each: The Next Healthcare Moves Of Tech Giants

Walmart announced the opening of five new ‘Walmart Health’ Centres in Florida in April, promising low-cost healthcare services. Not very surprising given how the American firm has been steadily building a foothold in this industry in recent years without any signs of slowing down.?

In the U.S., Walmart established 600 COVID-19 testing sites during the pandemic; before the current announcement, Walmart Health business has rolled out in 20 locations across Arkansas, Georgia and Illinois in the last three years complete with primary care, emergency care, labs and more. By 2029, Walmart’s board even plans to scale to 4,000 clinics.

Their aim is to make quality healthcare more affordable and accessible, and their advantage in potentially achieving that is that 90% of Americans live within 10 miles of a Walmart store.

This newest episode of non-healthcare mammoth companies and tech giants’ march into the health business made us think about what others will do next.

So here it is, a list of our expectations.?

Apple: Watch measuring blood pressure and blood glucose levels

Producing a device every 6th person has in their pocket worldwide, it seems clear how Apple can reach the field to play on. Not to mention another health tool: Apple holds the largest share of the global smartwatch shipment market. In the first quarter of 2020, that accounted for a substantial 47.9% share of the market. The company has been heavily leveraging the popularity of its smartwatch for its healthcare plans.

Through Apple Watch, the company has built an excellent pathway to electronic health records, too. Apple’s Health app aims to bridge patients and doctors, and all the data in-between. Users can share their health data collected by the Health app directly to EMRs, like Cerner, which is already supporting this feature. Seamlessly sharing patient healthcare data from an Apple device to an EMR and this being viewable by a doctor or caregiver represent a major step in facilitating digital health approaches.

The company entered the healthcare market later than its competitors but is working on acquiring a significant share, if its recent moves offer any indication. To validate the efficacy of its Apple Watch, the company has teamed up with various institutions for establishing its clinical accuracy. The cardiac metrics it monitors is as good as clinical tests. The results suggest that the Apple Watch could thus be adequate for remote monitoring of elderly patients with cardiovascular disease. However, it is also true that a recent study suggests that younger users might not fully benefit from the capabilities of the watch.

However, the Tech Giant is showing further interest in healthcare A.I. as it is reportedly developing machine learning algorithms to detect certain conditions early.

We bet on: Watch measuring blood pressure and blood glucose levels

Predicting their next move, we bet on Apple focusing on consumer tech and expanding Apple Watch sensor functions with blood pressure and blood glucose level monitoring through the existing hardware. What we expect is that instead of integrating new sensors, the algorithm will be developed to calculate blood pressure and blood glucose levels based on the already available and measurable metrics.

IBM: Turning towards the more profitable drug design

Watson Health, IBM’s A.I. healthcare arm has met considerable challenges in recent years. It received wide criticism following reports that questioned its diagnostic prowess while pointing out potential risks to patients’ safety. It also faced management issues and had to lay off part of its workforce in 2018. This all culminated in selling Watson Health in January 2022.

The company invested considerable resources into Watson Health, and parting with the project gave ground to widespread speculations about whether it will be the end of the company’s healthcare affairs.?

For now, we are team no. For over a century, tech company IBM was known for its innovation and client focus. Although in recent years, its glory in innovation has faded, we think this is not the end of the IBM in healthcare story.?

In quantum computing, IBM took the lead but is in a tight race with other tech giants like Google. IBM is also trying to stay on board with being at the forefront of the use of blockchain in a medical setting, co-operating for example with Moderna, and having enterprise-level customers like the State of New York for a blockchain-secured health certificate app.

We bet on: Turning towards the more profitable drug design?

We expect IBM will not exit the healthcare industry altogether but will change its focus. Instead of medical decision-making support, the more lucrative drug design has real promises for the company, as A.I. has both a larger role and a larger footprint in that specific area.?

Amazon: Expanding in-person care nationwide in the US

In recent years, Amazon’s healthcare efforts have seen both ups and downs. The major down being the end of Haven, a partnership it started with Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway and J.P. Morgan Chase.?

On the contrary, Amazon Care, the company’s telehealth branch is now available nationwide in the US, while the company has recently launched in-person care in 20 cities. Meanwhile, they secured a partnership with Teladoc, one of the major telehealth providers in the country, which will allow people to access its services through their Alexa devices.

We are not talking about trinkets here, the US telehealth industry is expected to grow into a 20-billion-dollar business in a few years.?

And we also should not forget about Amazon Pharmacy, a division steadily expanding since 2017, which recently took on drug discount platforms, launching a prescription discount savings card in five states.

We bet on: Expanding in-person care nationwide in the US

We expect Amazon to expand in-person care all over the United States. It remains to be seen if Walmart will have a say about that.

Google/Alphabet: Aim to conquer the drug design market with DeepMind

Of all these tech giants, Google is the one that knows what exactly people want. Even more: some say it can even direct that will. And people sure want health: 7% of all Google searches (an astounding 70,000 per minute) are health-related around the world. The search giant has repeatedly successfully transferred its in-depth knowledge of algorithms in the field of medicine, particularly since it acquired DeepMind.

Whether it’s in medical A.I. or fitness tracking, Google’s presence in healthcare is palpable through its numerous arms, which are forging ahead in the field. Verily, Google’s Alphabet healthcare branch, announced its partnership with Otsuka and Click Therapeutics in February 2021 for a clinical trial that will study the effects of digital interventions on patients with major depressive disorder.

Google had some missteps along the way, too, from Google Glass to launching-relaunching, now shutting down again its Google Health branch. But don’t give up on Google in healthcare: if the company wants in, it will be in.

We bet on: Aim to conquer the drug design market with DeepMindz

Based on the results of Alphabet’s protein folding, we expect the company’s next step will be to try and conquer the drug design market. There are two reasons to predict this. First, this segment offers unlimited potential, and also is the one where Alphabet has achieved most of all potential competitors.

Microsoft: Electronic Medical Records (EMR) software and solutions

Software giant Microsoft has a complicated history with healthcare. In 2019, it pulled the plug on HealthVault, its online personal health record system, which was launched in 2007. Its line of fitness trackers, the Microsoft Band, also followed a similar fate. But instead of giving up, Microsoft refocused its efforts towards cloud computing and A.I. in healthcare.?

In 2021, the company released its Vaccine Registration and Application System aimed at assisting the COVID-19 vaccination campaign in the U.S. However, users encountered issues with the platform, which were addressed with a new offering. In the U.K. Microsoft teamed with 13 startups working on A.I. tools to help the country’s healthcare sector.

In September 2020, Microsoft launched Cloud for Healthcare, a new, healthcare-centric cloud. It integrates the company’s existing services like Microsoft Teams, Azure IoT and its Healthcare Bot. These tools aim to assist with collaboration among staff and carry out telemedicine consultations and have been extended by a vast number of new functions ever since. In April 2021 Microsoft acquired A.I.-powered speech-technology company, Nuance. The company’s software can listen and transcribe doctor-patient conversations into organised medical notes.

We bet on: Electronic Medical Records (EMR) software and solutions

Creating EMR software and solutions for the healthcare industry is the most logical direction Microsoft can focus on, as it plays on their natural strengths. Microsoft has always shined on the enterprise side of anything. By delivering its computing know-how and the fact that most medical professionals are familiar with the way Microsoft’s computers are built and operate, the tech giant only needs to keep being good at what it already knows. Not to mention the fact that an overwhelming majority of hospital computers are running Windows already.?

NVIDIA: Focus on architecture to boost medical device and med-tech companies

Who would’ve thought NVIDIA has been active in healthcare for over a decade – the company helped bring innovative diagnostic imaging, robotic surgery and patient monitoring devices to the market. The processor unit manufacturer launched its A.I. platform, Clara in 2018, designed to augment medical imaging and genomics. It followed up a year later with a toolkit for radiologists, Clara A.I., to help with the classification of images. In 2019, the tech giant also started to explore federated learning in healthcare, the privacy-focused A.I. training method.

The graphics processing unit (GPU) manufacturer has been making strides in the healthcare industry ever since. Its 2021 foray in healthcare involved a partnership with Harvard University to develop an A.I.-based genome research toolkit. It is even touted as being able to sequence a whole genome in 30 minutes.

And here is their most recent report of upcoming promises in the segment.?

We bet on: Focus on architecture to boost medical devices and med-tech companies

We expect NVIDIA will strongly focus on becoming the go-to supplier of the industry, with further polishing recently developed architecture, providing a boost to medical device manufacturers and med-tech companies.

So, bets are on the table, we continue to follow all healthcare-related moves of these companies closely, and will report on any new initiatives.