Amazon taps former head of Prime to lead health efforts

Amazon has appointed Neil Lindsay, who formerly oversaw the tech giant’s Prime and Marketing vertical, to lead the company’s health efforts.

As CNBC reported this week, Lindsay’s LinkedIn profile now lists him as senior vice president of health and brand as part of the company’s worldwide consumer business.  

Sources familiar with the situation said that Lindsay took on a new role in November to lead Amazon’s pharmacy, telehealth and diagnostics teams, but that he will continue to run global brand and fixed marketing.   

The new structure brings together the Amazon Pharmacy, Care and Diagnostics businesses, with a goal of advancing higher quality of care and developing more customer-centric ways for patients to get the healthcare services, products and medications they need, the sources said.  

Lindsay has worked at Amazon for more than a decade, during which he has held major roles in product and business building. From 2003 to 2010, he served as chief marketing officer of Sprint prepaid brands.  

His change in duties comes as Amazon continues to ramp up its healthcare aspirations.   

In 2021 alone, the company confirmed nationwide expansion of its telehealth services and announced its plans to bring in-person care to more than 20 cities.  

Amazon also made its at-home COVID-19 tests widely available and signaled a potential move into other diagnostics, including sexually transmitted infection testing kits.  

In addition, the company unveiled several Alexa-enabled services aimed at assisting with in-home and in-facility care. August 2020 saw the release of its Halo health tracker.

Amazon has continued to hang on to its digital pharmacy foothold, as well.

Kat Jercich is senior editor of Healthcare IT News.
Twitter: @kjercich
Email: kjercich@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.