From Waikiki to the NY Times…
American Well’s official opening in Hawaii is next week. In advance it gets a plug in the NY Times from Claire Miller.
It’s no secret that American Well are good friends of Health 2.0 (and, FD, have been sponsors of the last 2 conference). What we didn’t know but have suspected for a while is revealed in Roy Schoenberg’s comment:
Dr. Schoenberg, a physician, said that American Well had piqued the interest of policy makers in Washington who want to expand access to health care. Insurers in other states will soon offer the service, he said.
It’ll be interesting to see in particular whether the insurers that have rolled out asynchronous messaging (i.e. Relayhealth plus the KP HealthConnect system) feel the pressure to add a live synchronous video-link service too. Of course the main competitor to Hawaii Blues is Kaiser who so far believe that asynchronous secure email reduces office visits and saves them money. So my guess is we’ll find out pretty soon.
Health 2.0 Developer Challenges