(Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc plans to shut down its virtual healthcare service by the end of this year, the retailer said on Wednesday, as a deal to buy a rival provider awaits regulatory approval.
Company executive Neil Lindsay told staff that Amazon Care, which lets business customers offer digital or at-home doctors’ visits to their personnel, had shortcomings despite the retailer’s efforts.
“It is not a complete enough offering for the large enterprise customers we have been targeting, and wasn’t going to work long-term,” he said in the message, which the company shared with Reuters.
Amazon Care’s customers included Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. The retailer offered virtual care nationwide and house calls in markets such as Los Angeles, Washington and Dallas.
Announced last month, Amazon agreed to acquire primary care provider One Medical, replete with the brick-and-mortar doctors’ offices that the Seattle technology company lacked, for $3.5 billion.
Lindsay said he still believes healthcare is “ripe for reinvention.”
(Reporting By Jeffrey Dastin in Palo Alto, Calif.; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
