Jeff Becker

The Amazon Effect Comes Full Swing To Prescription Services Amazon Pharmacy, the company’s much-anticipated online prescription fulfillment service (built from its acquisition of PillPack two years prior), launched this week. With this announcement (and its past healthcare investments), Amazon becomes a direct competitor with legacy retail pharmacies CVS Health, Walgreens Boots Alliance, and others. In […]

The forced digital transformation of 2020 was just the beginning for the healthcare industry. In 2021, transformation — and not just digital — will continue on a grander scale.

Microsoft announced a new strategic alliance with Epic Systems that will bring providers using Epic an integrated Teams experience within their electronic health record (EHR) clinical workflows. In a Forrester-HIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society) April-May survey of health system IT workers, respondents said that poor integration between virtual visit solutions and EHR workflows was the most […]

Amazon Launches Halo, Its First Wearable Health Device For The Average (Budget-Conscious) Consumer This week, Amazon launched Halo, a screenless wearable device that can monitor activity, sleep, temperature, BMI, and emotion. At $99.99 (plus a small monthly service fee for advanced features), the Halo Band sits closer to Fitbit’s fitness trackers (ranging from $99.95–$169.95) than the Apple Watch ($400-plus). It focuses on what consumers want most: tracking fitness-related activity, […]

The EU-US Privacy Shield Was Just Invalidated: What To Do Now This week, the Court of Justice of the European Union handed down its ruling in the case popularly known as “Schrems II.” Why should you care about an obscure EU case? Because the ruling invalidated the EU-US Privacy Shield, the mechanism by which American companies could […]

In a pandemic, every business becomes a healthcare business. Learn what technologies and strategies firms are using to manage through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Recently, Walmart quietly launched Walmart Insurance Services LLC. To better understand and triangulate what this move means for the future of healthcare, a team of Forrester analysts weighed in. Read their takes.

Brands Pledge To Stand With The Black Community In the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, citizens are taking to the streets to protest institutionalized racism. Brands are speaking out, too, because, as Netflix tweeted, “To be silent is to be complicit.” Netflix joins brands such as Google, Nike, Peloton, and Target (whose stores were looted) in taking a vocal anti-racist stance. Firms hear consumers’ desire to align with brands that share their values and are emboldened to make […]

The new contact tracing partnership provides both optimism and challenges in the fight against COVID-19. Find out how the tracking will work and what its limitations may be.

Senior Analyst Jeff Becker provides early results from the joint Forrester-HIMSS survey on healthcare organizational culture, patient satisfaction, and physician burnout.

Pandemic Forces Agencies To Rethink Employee Experience A slew of industry event cancellations and delays — such as the live network upfronts, Advertising Week Europe, or the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity — is forcing marketers and their agencies to rethink how to best work during a pandemic. With most agency holding companies deferring travel and […]

Teleheath is on the cusp of mass adoption as the COVID-19 pandemic intensifies. The move will usher in longer-term change for healthcare and the ecosystems surrounding it.

As the number of COVID-19 cases surge in the US there is a looming threat facing the US — healthcare capacity. Given this stark reality senior executives at companies, must make swift decisions to protect their employees, their communities, and even the US healthcare system.

Organizations that stick with fee-for-service models risk being left behind. Learn how to succeed with value-based strategies.

With more volatility expected in 2020, read Forrester's predictions for the US healthcare market, focusing on Medicare For All, the executive order on price transparency, and the growth of virtual care.

Author(s): Julie A. Ask, Frank E. Gillett, and Jeff Becker Google has announced that it will acquire Fitbit for $2.1 billion. This acquisition will improve Google’s health and wellness offerings and makes it more competitive. Forrester forecasts that smartwatch sales will surpass those of fitness trackers in 2020, with Apple Watch being the market leader. […]

Learn the three questions every health system should ask a public cloud vendor before making the jump. 

More than half of healthcare purchase influencers are planning new investments in AI next year. Senior analysts Arielle Trzcinski and Jeff Becker discuss how healthcare organizations can get the most tangible results from their AI investments.

Price transparency has come to the fore. In January of this year, hospitals started being required to publish what were once closely guarded pricing lists to the public. This has caused confusion for consumers. Fast-forward to later this year, and the White House issued a new executive order on price transparency. Hospitals will soon be […]