Best Buy Refocuses Geek Squad on Home Healthcare

In a move to offset sagging electronics sales while going deeper into the growing home health trend, Best Buy is partnering with multi-state provider Atrium Health on at-home health.

In a Tuesday (March 7) press release announcing the initiative, the two companies said, “This partnership takes advantage of Atrium Health’s leadership position in telemedicine, including a well-established hospital at home program,” adding that “when aligned with Best Buy Health’s existing expertise and abilities — as well as Best Buy’s strengths in innovative omnichannel experience, distinctive in-home service, and world-class supply chain — together, Atrium Health and Best Buy Health will address the complex requirements of these programs.”

Under the pact, “specially trained Geek Squad Agents” will assist with logistics and installation as well as tech support for the home health tech outfitting homes.

It’s the latest such development for Best Buy, whose October 2021 acquisition of remote patient monitoring (RPM) and care-at-home platform Current Health placed the consumer electronics chain squarely in the at-home health gold rush triggered by the pandemic.

Best Buy also invested late last year in RPM platform Coeus h3c “to accelerate customer access to the full benefits of its home health devices and solutions.”

The assortment of RPM platforms, wearables and related health-state monitoring devices from miniaturized diagnostic devices, pulse oximeters, blood pressure cuffs, and monitoring apps supporting it all have opened a new front in healthcare that takes some pressure off hospitals and urgent care centers by treating patients in the comfort of home with digital precision.

Read: HealthTech Firms Accelerate Deployment of Real-Time Remote Patient Monitoring Technologies

Bridging the Gap

With telemedicine visits down from pandemic highs, momentum has moved to more hospital-at-home arrangements as connected digital platforms and devices give patients and medical professionals more confidence in clinical outcomes from this relatively new mode of delivery.

In an interview, Sprinter Health CEO Max Cohen told PYMNTS’ Karen Webster that closing the gap between home health and hospital care is part of the challenge of the growing group of device makers and healthcare providers moving decisively into the RPM space.

“It’s much better for the patient, it’s better for the health system to know about capacity planning for the infusion center, it’s better for the provider because they want to get follow-ups,” Cohen said. “The question is, does the cost to do that exceed or is it lower than the value that’s created? We’re going to be able to learn a lot about that over the next few months.”

In the Best Buy-Atrium Health announcement, Best Buy Health President Deborah Di Sanzo said, “We’re excited to leverage our expertise in omnichannel, supply chain, Caring Center support and services, in-home support and our ability to connect patients and providers through Current Health’s care at home platform. Those strengths, combined with Atrium Health’s extensive clinical expertise and deep experience leading in virtual care, will help us improve and enable care in the home for everyone.”

See also: Best Buy, Google Join Outsiders in Push to Capture Remote Patient Monitoring Boom

An enabling technology for home health efforts, health-monitoring wearables including smartwatches and smart rings figure into these efforts. The Amazon Halo fitness tracker was introduced in 2020 and expanded to two other Halo devices in 2021, widely seen as a move to compete with Google’s FitBit and health monitoring features of the Apple Watch.

PYMNTS research finds that health-monitoring wearables are growing in popularity even among younger demographic groups, showing that the idea of remote health and fitness monitoring resonate with millennials and bridge millennials who will consume more healthcare as they age.

According to findings from “How Digital Has Changed the Consumer Healthcare Experience and Expectations,” a PYMNTS and CareCredit report, nearly half (48.5%) of surveyed consumers are now using some type of health monitoring technology, skewing toward younger demos.

Our research found that 70 million consumers used health-tracking apps and wearable smart devices to monitor their health between appointments in 2022, up 21% since November 2021.