Apple extends into healthcare with two clinics planned for employees

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) is planning to launch its own health clinics for employees and families that will be “enabled by technology”.

The clinics, named AC Wellness, will provide “compassionate, effective healthcare to the Apple employee population” through the use of technology and health-monitoring devices.

Launching in Spring 2018, two of the healthcare centres will open in Santa Clara County, California and Infinite Loop headquarters.

“AC Wellness Network believes that having trusting, accessible relationships with our patients, enabled by technology, promotes high-quality care and a unique patient experience,” it reads on the website.

“The centres offer a unique concierge-like healthcare experience for employees and their dependents.”

Apple is currently advertising for physicians, physical therapists, nurses and other positions to work at the two clinics.

With healthcare being a major cost for the tech giant, in-house services and proactive schemes to improve worker health will bring down costs for the group.

The clinics will also be used for research, where Apple will hope to test its Apple Watch and its heart rate sensor.

The move comes following Amazon’s (NASDAQ: AMZN) plans to team up with Warren Buffet and JP Morgan (LON: JMC) to create a company that helps their US employees find quality care “at a reasonable cost”.

The hope of the new healthcare system is to extend the services to “potentially all Americans” and end the capitalisation of traditional healthcare with a new not-for-profit healthcare company.

“The ballooning costs of [healthcare] act as a hungry tapeworm on the American economy,” said Buffett. “Our group does not come to this problem with answers. But we also do not accept it as inevitable. Rather, we share the belief that putting our collective resources behind the country’s best talent can, in time, check the rise in health costs while concurrently enhancing patient satisfaction and outcomes.”