Technology is at the center of everything we do in our daily lives, and as that continues to be true, the role of technology within healthcare is becoming more important than ever before.
Today, consumers want to receive care in their own homes, and providers are rapidly looking for ways to incorporate digital tools into healthcare delivery to improve outcomes and experiences. That is where Best Buy Health comes in.
Best Buy Health enables care at home for everyone and to do that, we are focused on three key areas:
Wellness at home: offering the latest tech products to keep you and your family healthy.
Picture this, you’re a parent with a sick child who shops on BestBuy.com and purchases a Tytocare medical exam kit. It arrives on your doorstep later that day. You use the kit to do a virtual visit with a physician who guides you through which tests to perform using the included attachments. This data is then sent directly to the physician who can use it to make a diagnosis and send a prescription to your local pharmacy.
Aging at home: helping you and your loved ones age comfortably at home.
Best Buy Health has a suite of products and services that provide support through our Caring Centers. Our Caring Center employees are real people available to help with everything from medical emergencies to scheduling appointments or just being there to help address emotional concerns like loneliness. Imagine if you’re a caregiver for your aging parent and they live alone in their home. Something comes up unexpectedly and you’re unable to visit them that day and as a result, your parent experiences a deep feeling of loneliness. Using one of our Lively devices, your parent contacts our Caring Center and is connected with an empathetic employee who provides them with a sense of comfort.
Care at home: connecting you to your trusted healthcare providers.
For example, you show up at the emergency room and upon your examination the doctor decides you would be a good candidate for their hospital at home program. Your provider sends you home with a Current Health wearable that helps monitor your vital signs and our Geek Squad then comes into your home, sets it up for you, shows you how to use it, and remains on standby for any tech-related troubleshooting. Once set up, our Clinical Command Center employee are consistently monitoring your health data collected by the wearable as a first-line triage for any issues that arise. Your provider is also easily able to view your vital signs through the Current Health platform and can monitor your recovery process and adjust your care when needed. All you need to do is focus on getting better.
A year to celebrate
In 2022, Best Buy Health made great progress in bringing health into the home. We released several new products and implemented new care-at-home programs across the country.
Here’s a look at some of the accomplishments from Best Buy Health from the last year.
New products, services
Following the FDA’s new rule allowing the sale of over-the-counter hearing aids, we introduced a new experience for hearing devices. This makes it convenient for the millions of Americans with mild to moderate hearing loss to easily get the products and support they need. We also introduced an expanded collection of devices, an in-store hearing experience in more than 300 stores, and a new online hearing assessment tool that helps customers find the right hearing device for them.
Our Lively Health & Safety Packages were updated to better empower those who are aging at home, and two new services were added: Nurse On-Call and Care Advocate. In addition, Lively Urgent Response was made compatible with Amazon Alexa-enabled devices. Now, users can say, “Alexa, call for help,” and will be immediately connected with someone who will assess the situation and get them the help they need in a variety of situations.
We also extended our capabilities in the care-at-home space through Geek Squad, successfully rolling out additional health training to our Agents and launching a pilot with Geisinger Health.
Big wins for Current Health
Current Health, a technology company with an FDA-cleared care-at-home technology platform, marked its first year as part of Best Buy Health. We acquired the company to help us accelerate our care at home strategy. The combination of Current Health’s world-class technology and Best Buy’s size and ability to help customers with technology in their homes helps close the gap in enabling care at home.
Together, in 2022, we expanded our relationships between Current Health and health systems such as Geisinger, Mount Sinai Health System, Parkland Health and the UK National Health Service. We also implemented new care-at-home programs with NYU Langone Health and others. Along with these partners, our care at home business currently works with five of the 10 biggest health systems in the United States.
And the work Current Health is doing is making an impact. Current Health customer the Defense Health Agency’s (DHA) virtual care program was the focus of a study published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR). In the study, researchers compared the financial impact and clinical outcomes at hospitals that participated in the care-at-home program versus those that weren’t. The researchers at Current Health and DHA found a 12% lower length of stay averaged across all COVID-19 patients, saving $2,047 per patient and a total net savings of an estimated $2.3 million in the first year of the program, with no increase in 30-day readmissions or emergency department visits. This important research demonstrates that care-at-home programs can improve the operational efficiency of our care delivery without harming clinical outcomes, which is vital for making healthcare better and more sustainable.
In addition to securing new relationships, the Current Health team developed new platform features that deepen our support for patients, including chronic condition management and its own in-house Clinical Command Center.
Finally, Current Health was awarded “Best Hospital Technology Implementation” in the 2022 MedTech Breakthrough Awards program. The award recognizes Current Health’s role supporting health systems across the U.S. implement innovative care-at-home programs.
We are bringing the momentum of 2022 with us into the new year and are excited about what is to come in 2023.
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