Retail giant Amazon (AMZN) is no stranger to the healthcare market, but it does not usually get into healthcare technology. But it did today, however, as reports of its new palm-scanning technology will be making their way to a healthcare operation in New York state. Investors, however, were a little less than pleased with the result, as shares dipped fractionally in Monday afternoon’s trading.
The new technology Amazon brought out is “palm-scanning technology,” reports note, and it does pretty much exactly what the name implies. It scans palms, and in the process, uses that scan to link to a user’s profile via a service called Amazon One. Basically, when users walk in the door at NYU Langone Health, they simply scan their palm at the door to check in.
This in turn reduces errors, and improves speed of sign-in, which is more convenient for patients and makes things a little easier on everyone. The time saved per patient may not be that much, but given that NYU Langone Health sees around 10 million patients a year, the cumulative savings are impressive by any measure. Even if the time saved is one second per visit, that sheer volume means nearly four full months of time saved.
The Drones Have Gone Silent
While the idea of a winged drone carrying food and small orders sounds great to many people, it was a little less welcoming in College Station, Texas. In fact, some described having the Amazon delivery system of small drones as like “…your neighbor runs their leaf blower all day long.” That kind of low, incessant buzzing got on a lot of nerves.
Thus, Amazon pulled the plug on drone delivery in College Station, Texas. Interestingly, despite the fact that several drone aircraft delivery systems are up and running these days, College Station was the only place where complaints turned out in large numbers. Hundreds, in fact, in the comparatively small city of 125,000 turned out to complain, and thus, Amazon pulled out.
Is Amazon a Buy, Sell or Hold?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on AMZN stock based on 47 Buys and one Hold assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 17.59% rally in its share price over the past year, the average AMZN price target of $268.91 per share implies 29.62% upside potential.
