Best Buy is adding Mass General Brigham to its list of partners as the retailer expands at-home care capabilities.
Best Buy Health will help scale and support the health system's Healthcare at Home operations, which includes services for acute-level patients and care for patients recovering from an illness or injury.
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Boston-based Mass General Brigham will use Best Buy’s Current Health technology platform and Lively Mobile Plus personal emergency response system. They will co-develop tools to improve at-home care coordination, and Best Buy will sponsor a scholarship for students interested in nursing, paramedic and digital technology careers.
"We know and have known that there are going to be certain capabilities that we can advance ourselves internally, but that we're going to have to find partners to be able to really deliver on the suite of services that we're looking to deliver in the home," said Dr. Stephen Dorner, chief clinical and innovation officer for Healthcare at Home at Mass General Brigham. "There [is] a mutual interest in solving the broader problems of shifting care out of hospitals and into the home-based environment."
Since 2020, Mass General Brigham has provided home hospital care to about 3,000 patients with a capacity for more than 30 patients at a time. The health system has said it expects to shift 10% of inpatient care to patients' homes over the next five years.
Financial details of the partnership were not disclosed.
The partnership builds on Best Buy’s similar work with other health systems such as Charlotte, North Carolina-based Advocate Health and Danville, Pennsylvania-based Geisinger Health.
Best Buy Health President Deborah Di Sanzo has said the company is leaning into its technical support role and wants to enable healthcare, rather than provide it directly. Best Buy’s Geek Squad employees help patients set up technology in their homes and teach them how to use it.
In October, Best Buy began selling prescription-based medical devices, beginning with the Dexcom G7 continuous glucose monitoring system.