Amazon has opened a new health care frontier: Now Alexa can be used to transmit patient data. Using this new feature—which Amazon labeled as a “skill”—a company named Livongo will allow diabetes patients—which it calls “members”—to use the device to “query their last blood sugar reading, blood sugar measurement trends, and receive insights and Health Nudges that are personalized to them.”
Private equity and venture capital firms are in love with a legion of companies and startups touting the benefits of virtual doctors’ visits and telemedicine to revolutionize health care, investing almost $10 billion in 2018, a record for the sector.
