The company behind the stylish, AI-enabled CarePod has abruptly closed, following a similar spiral as the HealthSpot more than a decade ago. The news proves that healthcare innovators shouldn’t just be trying to recreate the doctor’s office.
Another kiosk-based telehealth company has shut down, proving once again that a high-tech virtual care platform isn’t the successful business model that disruptors think it can be.
Forward, which launched in 2016 with a cash-based model and unveiled the stylish, AI-enabled CarePod just last year, announced its abrupt demise in a company post this week, putting some 200 employees out of work. The company said it was immediately discontinuing its app, cancelling all scheduled visits and shutting down all operations, while keeping a support team available for about a month.
The collapse is reminiscent of the HealthSpot, a similarly-styled kiosk that debuted at the CES show in Las Vegas in 2012. The company behind the kiosk raised almost $50 million, built close to 200 kiosks and had deals in place with Rite-Aid, the Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic and Kaiser Permanente before going bankrupt in 2016.
The lesson to be learned in these closures is that technology alone won’t solve anything, and that consumers and business owners are looking past all the bells and whistles for convenient, no-frills healthcare connections. A kiosk that can replicate a complete visit to the doctor’s office may look and sound great, but it’s still a healthcare visit to a different location. If consumers want the experience to look that much like a doctor’s office, they’ll go to their doctor’s office.
To be fair, the kiosk concept is still enticing. Pursuant Health, which began as SoloHealth in 2007 with the EyeSite vision kiosk, now has more than 4,600 health kiosks in high-traffic retail and grocery stores across the country. And Canada-based UniDoc Health Group, which unveiled its H3 Cube Virtual Care Simulations Model (VCSM) at the American Telemedicine Association conference in 2022, rolled out the first commercial shipment this week, and is pursuing an international “AI-focused eHealth” strategy that would out its kiosks in remote and resource-thin regions around the globe.
Health systems and hospitals are also interested in the form factor. Rochester University Medical Center has partnered with Five Star Bank to locate smaller telehealth kiosks in several bank branches, eyeing a strategy that that improves access in rural upstate New York. And several healthcare organizations across the US have located smaller kiosks--some no more than a laptop and connected devices in a cubicle—in libraries, malls, community centers and other locations with the goal of giving consumers quick and easy access to virtual care providers for small health concerns.
As Forward and HealthSpot have proven, bigger isn’t better and telehealth companies, care providers and disruptors who are looking to recreate the doctor’s office in other settings are missing the point. Small, quick and easy may be the key to sustainability.
Eric Wicklund is the associate content manager and senior editor for Innovation at HealthLeaders.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Healthcare kiosks have been around for decades, but their success rate isn’t based on being big and flashy.
Telehealth companies and disruptors who rely on the latest technology to replicate the doctor’s office are finding that isn’t what consumers or companies want.
Providers are seeing success with small, convenient kiosks that enable consumers to access virtual care for a quick and easy healthcare visit.