Haven Health is About to Disrupt the U.S. Healthcare System

Background: Healthcare costs are increasing in the U.S. Healthcare market is fragmented and opaque. The Amazon, JP Morgan Chase, and Berkshire Hathaway partnered to form an independent healthcare company ‘Haven’, designed to support cost-containment in health care and to forge a better patient experience. Limited information is available in the public domain about Haven’s strategy to deliver cost-effective healthcare for their employees. Objective: To describe the impact of Haven Health of modern healthcare. Methods: We reviewed literature in Pubmed (MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics from the USA National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health) and the public domain. Results: Amazon’s expertise and abilities in e-commerce such as logistics, supply, and big data management will support Haven’s quest to resolve inefficiencies in health care. Haven may attempt to directly negotiate with providers, bypassing insurance companies, to establish themselves as an independent payor. Additionally, Haven to establish themselves as a provider by building new low-cost primary care clinics, focusing on chronic disease prevention. The new healthcare system may leverage machine learning, artificial intelligence and big data analysis to support its initiatives and other ‘big data’ analytics to drive it all. Conclusions: Heaven Health may use its expertise to disrupt everything from the pharmaceutical supply chain to primary care and telehealth. More research is needed to evaluate the impact of Haven Healthcare on disease outcomes and healthcare costs.