Walmart uses a cloud service from Microsoft and VMware to access its Epic EHR instances at every new healthcare clinic it opens.
Horizon Cloud on Azure is designed for the secure management of workflows through the cloud, according to the Feb. 24 VMware article. Walmart has 32 in-store clinics, with plans to more than double that number by the end of 2024.
In the article, David Rhew, MD, global chief medical officer at Microsoft, said clinical retailers are "definitely going to disrupt the industry."
"They need to build out more infrastructure, though, relative to technology, in order to provide the same level of services you can receive in an existing hospital or a clinic," he said. "A big part of that transformation is going to be around cloud and [artificial intelligence] and the ability to create virtual environments so clinicians can access the resources they need to deliver better care.
"A key factor will be their ability to go beyond the basic wellness checks to things more related to primary care and chronic disease management, and eventually incorporating the more proactive predictive analytics that are currently lacking in healthcare. We should be able to tell when a person is heading in the wrong direction before they actually do."