Best Buy is widely recognized for installing TVs and home theater systems. Now, its Geek Squad is extending its services to set up virtual hospital rooms.
On Tuesday, the consumer electronics retailer announced a three-year partnership with Atrium Health, a North Carolina-based health-care system, to support a hospital-at-home program.
Atrium Health is part of Advocate Health, one of the largest health-care nonprofits in the United States.
The Geek Squad will visit patients’ homes to install technology that remotely monitors vitals such as heart rate and blood oxygen levels.
They will also train the patients or their household members on how to use these devices. The collected data will be securely transmitted to doctors and nurses via the telemedicine hub from Current Health.
Since mid-February, Best Buy has been setting up virtual-care systems for 10 hospitals in and around Charlotte, North Carolina.
The company aims to have approximately 100 patients in the program daily, which is equivalent to the capacity of a midsized hospital but without a physical building.
While Best Buy and Atrium did not reveal specific financial details, they stated that Atrium will purchase the devices from Best Buy and use Geek Squad services for both installation and retrieval once the patient is discharged.
Patients will pay Atrium through their insurance, including Medicare or Medicaid.
Deborah Di Sanzo, President of Best Buy Health, noted that with the Geek Squad handling the setup, doctors and nurses can focus more on patient care.
“This smooths out the connection between technology and care,” she said. For Best Buy, the hospital-at-home program is part of a broader strategy to make health care a significant revenue stream, especially as sales of other consumer electronics decline.
Best Buy, like other retailers such as Walmart and Target, has seen a decrease in sales of big-ticket and discretionary items as consumers allocate more of their budget to essentials like food and housing.
Many consumers also purchased or upgraded their tech gadgets during the early pandemic years.
The retailer anticipates a same-store sales decline of 3% to 6% for the fiscal year, with most of the drop expected in the first six months.
Over the past five years, Best Buy has acquired three health-care companies: GreatCall, which makes user-friendly cell phones and connected health devices for seniors and offers emergency response services; Critical Signal Technologies, another senior-focused company; and Current Health, a UK-based tech company specializing in remote patient monitoring and telehealth.
Additionally, Best Buy sells health and wellness devices like hearing aids and fitness trackers.
On an earnings call last week, CEO Corie Barry mentioned that Best Buy expects its health division to outpace the rest of its business in sales growth this fiscal year.
Di Sanzo acknowledged that Best Buy’s at-home-care segment is still in its early stages and currently generates minimal revenue.
“We want to do this thoughtfully,” she said.
“We want to do this well. We want to create pathways that enable care at home in a more seamless manner. We want to tie technology and empathy together and really help change how health care is delivered to people in their homes.”
Atrium Health initiated its hospital-at-home program out of necessity during the early pandemic when its hospitals and ICUs were overwhelmed with Covid patients, explained Dr. Rasu Shrestha, chief innovation and commercialization officer at Atrium.
He noted that the program proved beneficial for patients with various conditions, such as those recovering from heart conditions, infections, or surgery.
It costs less than hospital care and allows patients to recuperate surrounded by loved ones and home comforts.
Patients in the program are medically stable, Shrestha said. Some are discharged from the hospital, while others enter the hospital-at-home program directly after an emergency room visit.
To date, Atrium Health has served over 6,300 patients through the hospital-at-home program, he added.
