Today, atrium and Best Buy. Strike a partnership, which I think your health system will be doing sometime very soon.

 My name is Bill Russell. I'm a former CIO for our 16 hospital system and creator of this week Health. A set of channels dedicated to keeping health IT staff current and engaged. We want to thank our show sponsors who are investing in developing the next generation of health.

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 All right. Here's the story. Best Buy an Atrium Health Set in-Home hospital care deal in place. Let me grab my glasses. Here we go. Best Buy Geek Squad will install healthcare devices that Power Hospital at home program for Atrium Health, North Carolina based nonprofit Best Buy is best known for installing TVs and home theater systems.

Now its Geek Squad is helping to set up a virtual hospital. The consumer electronics retailer said Tuesday. It has struck a three year deal with Atrium Health and North Carolina based healthcare system to help enable hospital at home program. Atrium Health is part of Advocate Health, one of the country's largest healthcare, , systems, nonprofits.

Actually, it says, see, best Buy. Geek Squad will go to patients set up technology that remotely monitors their heart rate, blood, oxygen level, and other vitals and train the. or others in the home how to use the devices. The data would then be shared securely with the doctors and nurses through the telemedicine hub from Current Health.

Best Buy began setting up virtual care systems in mid-February for 10 hospitals in and around Charlotte, North Carolina. The company said it aims to have about a hundred patients in the program each day, roughly equivalent to a mid-sized hospital, but without a building. , again, my gosh, there's so much in.

, right, so this keeps you from having to make more investments in real estate. This is the type of venue that people want to receive care in and, , and utilizing Best Buy takes care of one of the hardest problems that health systems are gonna have to face and don't really need to face. It's not a core competency going into people's homes to set up technology and troubleshoot that technology takes a fair amount of.

Process training, , hiring practices. There's a whole host of things that we might take for granted cuz we sorta, , you know, look at the, the Geek Squad and, and think of them as, I mean, they set it up as a bunch of nerds driving around in these black cars, but the reality is they're well trained. They, , are in a system that works.

They have insurance to take them into the homes. They are trained to handle the consumer in their, , in their natural habitat, if you will, their home. And there's a whole host of things that go around that, that should not be minimized.

Let me give you a little bit more about the article. Best Buy and Atrium did not disclose financial terms but said Atrium will buy the devices from Best Buy and use the Geek Squad services for installation and retrieval when the patient is cleared from for , from care. Patients will pay Atrium through their insurance, including Medicare and Medicaid.

Best Buy Health President. , Deborah Des Sanzo said, with the Geek Squad doing the setup, it leaves the doctors and nurses free to focus on the health of the patients. This smooths out the connection between technology and care. She said, for Best Buy, the hospital at home program represents the latest push to turn healthcare into a more meaningful revenue driver.

It's healthcare. Comes as sales of other consumer electronics. Slow down

Best Buy like retailers, including Walmart and Target. Have seen consumers buy fewer big ticket items. And as they pay more for food and housing, many consumers also bought or upgraded their laptop, smartphones, kitchen appliances, and other similar products. During the early years of the pandemic, the retailer expects the same store sales to decline between three and 6% in the fiscal year with most of that drop coming in the first six months.

Over the past five years, though Best Buy has acquired three healthcare companies. Great Call, which makes easy to use cell phones and connected health devices to provide emergency response services for aging adults, critical signal technologies, another senior focused company and current health, A tech concern based in the uk.

That helps with remote patient monitoring and telehealth. Best Buy also sells health and wellness devices, including hearing aids, hearing aids and fitness trackers. , and it goes on to talk about this. I think this is the model. I'm not just saying this because Atrium just did it. I said this. , , probably two years ago, , when Best Buy made their announcement, I said, the play for Best Buy is exactly this.

They will smooth out that process. They will take the, , devices into the home, and I think they're gonna start with these basic devices and I think they will move into higher acuity setup of the homes. This is the future of healthcare. We know it's the future of healthcare. It's not coming as fast as what people.

But this is the foundation for it. It is one of the building blocks is being able to go into the home, set up that care, ease that that process and be the troubleshooting. You don't want the doctors and the nurses and the care providers to be the troubleshoots. You want the Geek squad, this is what they do, this is what they're trained for, this is what they're good at.

Right. And , and I think this is the. I thought it was the model two years ago, and I think it is gonna continue to, I think we're gonna see more and more health systems if you're not already talking to Best Buy and they're not a sponsor. They should be a sponsor, but they're not a sponsor of this week health.

I'm just telling you. It's a really good model. It's a way to get this off the ground without really taxing your IT staff to do things. They're not good at your health system to do things that they're not good at. , you know, Maytag got out of the home repair business a long time ago. And, , all of those companies, you deliver healthcare, you do not deliver these kinds of, , services of technology set up and whatnot in the home.

So I think more and more health systems are gonna head down this path, and that is the direction I think most are gonna go.

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