Amazon’s cashierless Just Walk Out technology has been deployed in more than 120 third-party locations, including airports, stadiums, university campuses, convenience stores and theme parks. One of the more recent implementations was the St. Joseph’s/Candler Hospital Campus in Savannah, Ga.
With the Just Walk Out technology, staff members can use their employee badges to pay for items by scanning it at the entrance to the hospital’s food and beverage concessions. The purchase amount is automatically deducted from the employee’s payroll account, a major benefit for doctors, nurses and other staff people who often don’t carry wallets or purses while they’re working. Non-staff members can use credit cards, mobile wallets, QR codes or the Amazon One palm payment system to enter and shop at the checkout-free stores.
“Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology supports our smart medicine strategy by providing high-tech solutions to our patients, visitors and co-workers, even with food service,” said Paul P. Hinchey, President and CEO of St. Joseph’s/Candler in a statement. “With this technology, Candler Hospital co-workers needing a quick snack or a meal during the third shift, as well as visitors taking care of friends or family members, have a convenient way to purchase the meals, snacks and drinks they need so they can quickly get back to their loved ones. Once we evaluate its impact post-launch, we will determine how this technology might be utilized on our other campuses.”
Amazon worked with CBORD, a health care automation solutions provider, to enable the badge pay capability at Candler Hospital. Employees can look up receipts and account balances in the hospital’s badge pay web portal or mobile app.
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Expanding Just Walk Out Capabilities
Amazon has been enhancing the Just Walk Out technology in recent months: in September 2023, Amazon incorporated RFID tag technology to allow customers at two Seattle sports venues to purchase RFID-tagged apparel. The company also has been working with campus card providers like CBORD, Transact and Grubhub to allow students to use their meal plans to make purchases.
Just Walk Out also provides retailers with analytics data while preserving customers’ privacy, offering aggregated and anonymized analytics around how products are considered, picked up, returned to the shelf and purchased. Amazon emphasized that it does not use or collect any biometric information as part of this data-gathering.
“We look forward to bringing Just Walk Out technology and our employee badge pay capability to more health care facilities,” wrote Jon Jenkins, VP, Just Walk Out technology, AWS Applications in a blog post.
