Best Buy expands its home care presence

Need a new TV and a chronic care management program? Best Buy can deliver both.

The electronics retailer announced it is planning to co-develop technology and services with the Geisinger health system to help health care organizations run their own chronic care management program.

Best Buy has already been working with Geisinger to deliver in-home care to patients with chronic conditions, and now they want to team up to deliver similar results to other health care organizations. Best Buy’s Geek Squad handles the in-home set up of the required technology.

Geisinger has more than 1,000 patients in its remote monitoring program for patients with congestive heart failure, COPD, high blood pressure, and diabetes. The monitoring equipment is provided through Current Health, which Best Buy acquired in 2021.

According to Best Buy, the program allows providers to implement patient monitoring more quickly and improves care plan adherence. It states the following results for the Geisinger program:

• 50% reduction in the time from admission into the chronic care at home program to when device set up is completed and the Geisinger care team can begin monitoring the patient remotely. This is a reduction from an average of 96 hours to 48 hours.
• 19% improvement in how well patients follow their care plans by wearing and using their remote technology equipment more consistently.
• 18% reduction in technical issues reported.

“The results of our program show that when we combine what Best Buy is known for—technology support and expertise—with Geisinger’s best-in-class care teams and network of clinics and hospitals, we can make a meaningful difference in the patient and caregiver experience,” said Deborah Di Sanzo, president of Best Buy Health, in a statement. “Geisinger has been incredible in this work and we’re very excited about our ability to scale these capabilities across the country to further Best Buy Health’s goal to enable care at home for everyone.”

Best Buy has been making a bigger push into health care as of late. It signed a deal with Atrium Health earlier this year to increase Atrium’s hospital-at-home program. Best Buy also owns GreatCall, an emergency response provider, Critical Signal Technologies, a remote monitoring company, and Coeus.health, a software platform that coordinates in-home care.