Amazon, CVS and other retailers have made big headlines in recent by acquiring companies and announcing partnerships to speed their push into healthcare delivery. The deals could transform the industry and the patient experience, but they could also be disastrous and highly-public failures.
I’m rooting for the former, but unless corporate leaders step carefully I can easily see the latter taking shape. The difference-maker, I believe, will be whether these companies can essentially build a cultural and operational wall around their care-delivery divisions and assign gatekeepers who’ll turn away those who might infect those divisions with the typical corporate nonsense, while carefully letting others enter.