Amazon. Google. Uber. CLEAR.
You know the names, but you may not know how much they are disrupting the health care space in New Jersey — or how much they are helping to transform Hackensack Meridian Health into one of the most tech‑forward systems in the country.
Silicon Valley knows. It’s the reason HMH was one of the systems invited to speak at the prestigious J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco this past January.
CEO Bob Garrett said the system received no shortage of praise for its achievements.
Yes, Hackensack University Medical Center being named one of the Top 20 hospitals in the country by U.S. News & World Report drew attention. But the bigger buzz came from what HMH is doing as an entire system — the ways it is integrating technology, rethinking access, and forming partnerships that are more common in Silicon Valley than in New Jersey health care.
Meeting of minds
“We got big shout-outs in California for our out-of-the-box partnerships,” Garrett said. “The tech community sees what we’re doing and they embrace it.”
HMH seemingly is building a tech ecosystem inside a health system. Consider the companies and the concepts:
- Uber: Logistics
- CLEAR: Identity / security
- Google: AI / data
- Amazon: Access
Among all the partnerships, Garrett said the one that drew the most attention was the collaboration with Amazon and One Medical, a strategy aimed at addressing one of the state’s most fundamental health care gaps — access to primary care.
Approximately one in three New Jerseyans does not have a primary care doctor, Garrett said. It’s a staggering number and it affects everything from chronic disease management to early detection and basic wellness.
The Amazon/One Medical partnership is designed to change that.
Two brick‑and‑mortar primary care centers already have opened. A third is expected to open within months. And nearly two dozen sites are on the planning board.
Garrett said the strategy isn’t only about adding locations, it’s about meeting consumers where they already live digitally. And doing it with high-tech innovation.
“Amazon brings scale and convenience, One Medical brings a modern care model, and we bring the clinical depth of a major health system,” Garrett said. “Together, we’re creating access in places and ways that didn’t exist in New Jersey.”
While Amazon/One Medical are providing more care for residents (Amazon Prime members get a discount, too), Google and K Health are helping to lead HMH’s efforts once they get there, Garrett said.
HMH is collaborating directly with Google’s health care and engineering teams to build a long‑term AI strategy for diagnostics, workflow improvement and predictive analytics.
For Garrett, the appeal is that Google brings a level of engineering scale and analytical power that would take years — or decades — for a health system to replicate on its own.
“We want to use AI to improve quality, accuracy and efficiency — and we want to do it responsibly,” Garrett said. “Working with Google allows us to design tools that are clinically meaningful, not just technologically interesting.”
The same can be said for HMH’s connection to K Health, which helped to create HMH 24/7, an AI-driven solution that connects patients to primary care through a seamless integration of virtual and in-person care. HMH 24/7 offers patients quick and easy access to Hackensack Meridian Health clinicians for all their primary care needs (sick, chronic and preventive care) right from their phones.
While Amazon, Google and K Health address access and intelligence, Uber and CLEAR represent the “last mile” of the patient experience — making the system easier to navigate and reducing friction in moments when patients are most vulnerable.
Uber helps patients get to appointments reliably, especially those with mobility challenges or limited transportation options. CLEAR brings airport-style identity verification to the health care check‑in process, reducing wait times and eliminating paperwork bottlenecks.
Of course, for all the talk about AI, apps, virtual care and logistics, Garrett is quick to note that the system’s most profound innovations often begin in its research arm — the Center for Discovery and Innovation.
CDI’s scientists are driving breakthroughs in cancer, infectious disease, cardiac and diabetes research, Garrett said. And don’t forget about its successes during the pandemic. Even the federal government remembers.
At a time when funding is being cut everywhere, Garrett proudly boosts how HMH has maintained theirs.
“Under stressful times for research dollars, particularly NIH grants, they have really been very successful over the past year in keeping the level of funding that they’ve seen in previous years,” he said.
There’s a reason why, Garrett said.
“I give them a lot of credit for not only the research that they’re doing, but their ability to translate that research from the bench to the bedside in record time – that’s helping to keep that funding level where it is.”
And keep HMH in the national spotlight.
Garrett, who missed his annual meeting at DAVOS to attend the event, said the moment was meaningful.
“It was great timing for us to be out there and to tell the Hackensack Meridian story, which really was very well received,” he said.
