American Well

Summary: -
At a time, when Internet consumption was rising rapidly, healthcare sector was still lagging
behind following its traditional traits. Not just the sector, even the consumers never
questioned waiting in long queues to get their chance or even weeks to just get an
appointment with a specialist. Seeing this market an opportunity, brothers and physicians, Ido
Schoenberg and Roy Schoenberg co-founded their company American Well, a venture into
the healthcare through the IT technology. Customers can get real time consultation regarding
health-related issues, major or minor, from a physician just a click away from the comfort of
their home irrespective of where they are located by using their online platform Online Care.
Financing the company did not take much time, since cordial relationship with their peer
investors helped them getting capital within three weeks, building up the platform and later
convincing people and physicians regarding American Well’s cost effective, efficient and
convenient healthcare service was not easy. This was not someone’s first technology venture
in the health care industry. There were other players like RelayHealth, TeleDoc,
MinuteClinic and so on who had their own innovative platforms or systems but most of them
couldn’t sustain in the long run or got acquired by a bigger firm. American Well, on the other
hand had a holistic approach where most of the needs of the patients and doctors to be
onboard was taken care of and after their first launch in Hawaii, it received positive
responses. By fall 2009, three healthcare service providers along with Hawaii Medical
Service Association was using American Well’s platform for their employees and policy
holders. The immediate plan of its founders was expanding its business across United States
and overseas to customers from Australia, Germany and United Kingdom who have shown
interests.

Analyse the potential of online care in revolutionizing the Health Care Industry.
1. Save time of patient as well as doctor (Team Edition)
In present time when everyone is so busy in their life and to consult even a single issue with
Doctor, one has to take appointments weeks ago or wait in long queues. Online health has a
great and also a need of hour. A patient just need to log on to the system, provide their card
details, indicate their type of doctor whom he want to consult with and instantly get list of
doctors available at that point of time. Thos save a lot of time of Patient and even docots
too.

Physicians who were enrolled in the system would be able to log on essentially any time they
wanted to conduct 10-minute sessions with patients. A patient would log on to the system,
provide her credit card information, indicate what type of doctor she would like to consult with,
and instantly get a choice of the current doctors online that matched her request. The chosen
doctor would receive access to the patient’s medical records and then interact with the patient via
the phone or the Internet (including video or live chat options). Once the interaction ended, the
system would manage the billing process seamlessly. Ido expanded: “All health care today is
point-to-point: doctors and patients need to be at a specific place at a specific time in order
for the service to take place. We’ve built a platform that is many-to-many: there is no
appointment, no specific time and place, but rather care can be delivered from any place at any
time. The American Well marketplace coordinates this.”
 2. Cost effective for insurance company and patients
3. Retail clinics and pharmacy chains
4. Immediate care and set up booths at offices and hospitals
5. Relying more on doctors instead of home remedies
6. Convenience- all practitioners, pharmacies etc connected via one platform.
Confidentiality
7. Connectivity- pandemic, calamity, overseas, elderly, hospitality at your doorstep.

If you were American Well Management, what would you do-

Option 1: Pursue any of the next generation options (products or markets) in 2010
Option 2: Focus on the core platform with the core target market
Justify the option you choose.
If I were part of the top management in American Well, I would choose to focus on the core
platform as the impact that this service can have on the Health Care System is vast and
needs a lot of concentrated effort to make sure everything goes smoothly.
American Well has already set some plans like Team Edition to grow the company and make
sure that doctors can take advice from specialists in real-time without delay. A lot of
resources will be utilized to ensure that the launch of Team Edition goes smoothly. On top
of that, if any new markets or products are explored, it can stretch the resources too, thus
negatively affecting both aspects of the business.
Customer service is an essential component of any service provided. Much planning and
attention to detail are required to ensure all technical issues are taken care of, and proper
support is provided to all the patients and doctors. Any blunder in the existing processes can
have enormous consequences and affect the reputation. It is better to concentrate on
growing the business rather than branch out.
There are advancements in technology every day, and it is imperative to make sure that
American Well is also keeping up with it, to ensure that customers get the fastest and best
service, or else it can cost them, valuable customers. There is also a lot of scope for growing
the current business where they already have the first mover advantage; developing the
existing business is less risky than testing out the waters.