Amazon palm-scanning technology comes to the hospital

• NYU Langone is the first health care setting to implement the Amazon One technology, which is already in use at stadiums, universities and Whole Foods locations.

State of play: Starting next week, patients arriving at NYU Langone facilities can scan their palm to check in and verify their identity.

• The technology, which is integrated with NYU Langone's electronic health record system, will replace ID checks and other traditional identity verification methods, Amazon said in a news release.

Zoom in: Amazon's palm-scanning technology won't collect health care records from providers, per the company's news release.

• The data collected from patients will be encrypted and patients can unenroll from Amazon One and request their data be deleted at any time, per the company.

Our thought bubble: The new tech is cool, and it would be nice not to have to dig our ID out of our bag when we're already running late for an appointment.

• But it doesn't address the health data interoperability issues that make patients fill out a stack of forms each time they go to the doctor.