Geisinger and the Geek Squad: Expanding home care with Best Buy Health

More than a year ago, Geisinger began working with Best Buy Health to help track patients in the home.

After encouraging results, the Pennsylvania health system will be expanding its partnership with the retailer, which has been building its presence in healthcare. Geisinger and Best Buy Health announced Tuesday that they will be doing more work together to help manage the care of chronically ill patients.

In 2021, Geisinger launched a remote monitoring program to track patients with heart disease, diabetes and other chronic conditions. Geisinger patients received blood pressure cuffs and other devices from Current Health, Best Buy Health’s care-at-home program.

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In July 2022, Geisinger and Best Buy Health started work on an initiative to help improve remote monitoring.

This is where Best Buy’s famed “Geek Squad” enters the picture.

The retailer’s tech experts helped install remote monitoring devices in patient homes and worked with the patients to make sure they were using them properly. The Best Buy tech staff also helps patients navigate problems with the equipment and ensures they are transmitting data to Geisinger properly.

Geisinger and Best Buy Health said the program has drastically shortened the set-up time for tracking patients. Within 48 hours, patients were typically sending data to Geisinger. Previously, the set-up time took 96 hours on average.

In addition, there was an 18% reduction in technical issues, and a 19% improvement in patients using the devices properly.

Karen Murphy, executive vice president, chief innovation officer and founding director of the Steele Institute for Health Innovation at Geisinger, said the success of the program is key to Geisinger’s plans to offer more care at home.

“Working with Best Buy Health has allowed us to redefine the care experience and drive positive change in how care is provided and received,” Murphy said in a statement.

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Deborah Di Sanzo, president of Best Buy Health, said 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 Health is also working with Advocate Health in a partnership to improve hospital-at-home programs. Dubbed “Project Pink Floyd,” the organizations said they hope to develop insights and advances for other health systems.

“We’re not going to do it just for Atrium and Best Buy,” Di Sanzo said in a presentation at the ViVE digital health conference in March. “We want to smooth out the road, illuminate the dark side of the moon, and bring it to other health systems.”

Christopher McGhee, the CEO of Current Health, says hospitals and health systems should be working to find ways to care for patients in the home. In an interview with Chief Healthcare Executive® at the HLTH conference in 2022, McGhee said more hospitals are recognizing they have to think about healthcare differently.

“The future isn’t just going to be inpatient,” McGhee says. “Everyone agrees that part of the future of care is going to be care in the home. So we have to think about that future.”