Apple to launch independent healthcare clinics for employees this Spring
- 1 March 2018
Apple is opening its own dedicated healthcare clinics for employees called AC Wellness.
The independent medical service is due to open in Spring 2018, according to a new dedicated website.
It is believed the clinics will operate independently from Apple but will offer healthcare services dedicated exclusively to Apple employees.
The smartphone giant follows the likes of Amazon, which recently announced that it was teaming up with JP Morgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway to launch its own independent health business.
According to the AC Wellness website, the clinics will offer a “concierge-like” healthcare service for Apple employees with, as one might expect, a strong focus on tech.
According to CNBC, to start with the clinics will only serve Apple staff in Santa Clara, California, where its US headquarters are located.
The careers section of the AC Wellness website reveals that the group is hiring for a number of positions, including a general practitioner, an acute care doctor, a nurse practitioner, an exercise coach and phlebotomists – personnel trained to draw blood.
An Apple a day keeps the doctor away
Also listed on the jobs page are open positions for a nurse coordinator, care navigator, and a health partner, the latter of which will be charged with “[helping] patients improve health and wellness through sustainable behaviour change.”
Apple is in addition seeking developers and designers to set up a preventative healthcare programme, CNBC said.
Sources speaking to the publication claimed Apple plans to use AC Wellness clinics as a testing ground for its burgeoning suite of healthcare products and services.
Apple has made a concerted effort to increase its presence in the consumer healthcare sector in recent months.
In September of last year, the company introduced more advanced monitoring capabilities to the Apple Watch to make it capable of detecting irregular heart rhythms.
It also recently introduced the ability for US customers to view their medical records on iPhones running iOS 11.3 software.
4 Comments
These computer guys aren’t just going to come in and revolutionise healthcare…. or will they.
Good
It’s just a matter of time before Google, Amazon, Apple, etc. take over healthcare. The NHS’s resistance to innovation and technology is fast sealing it’s fate. The divide between the haves and have nots will grow at an accelerating rate as digital health technology becomes a consumer commodity and affordable private health services become abundant. Those who cannot afford these service will be stuck with a legacy NHS still fiddling about with fax machines, obsessing about standards and centralised record silos, a painful hangover from the 90’s. It’s time to let go of the misplaced nostalgia, stale ideologies and embrace change.
It’s all very well having a bit of your record on your phone, but where is the health “service” in this? Health DIY is fine up to a point, and it does add some value. No evidence that these services add anything like a shareable record as yet, and as for actual functionality? There is more to health than looking at records. Microsoft tried it and failed. Are you going to continue this tirade against the NHS all through its 70th year and beyond?
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