Are Retailers the Future of Healthcare?

April 14, 2019 | 3:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m. CDT

Retail outlets like Walmart and Amazon have announced plans to more aggressively compete in the healthcare industry. The healthcare sector continues to undergo significant transformation with mergers and acquisitions like CVS-Aetna and Cigna-Express Scripts, creating new opportunities for patients to access care and receive healthcare services. As these organizations seek to provide convenient and affordable access to care, telehealth will play a significant role in the competition for market share and will create new opportunities for innovation. Additionally, the increasing adoption of telehealth by retail outlets and vertically-integrated health care organizations raises new policy questions in such areas as information access, privacy and security, and the convergence of health and consumer data. Current policies are insufficient to address the unique issues created by these new developments. Policies need to be reimagined in order to guide telehealth innovation toward responsible, value-driven care for patients and the healthcare system.

Speaker:

• Keisuke Nakagawa, MD, Postdoctoral Scholar in Physician Health & Technology, UC Davis Health