As they say, watch this space

As we were working on the April issue, Best Buy Health announced a new partnership with Atrium Health to provide remote patient monitoring, telehealth and patient management technology for the health system’s hospital-at-home program. 

It turns out Atrium Health, which reportedly has the largest such program in the country, is just the tip of the iceberg. 

Best Buy Health’s care-at-home solution, Current Health, also has partnerships with five of the 10 largest health systems, including Geisinger, Mount Sinai Health System and NYU Langone Health, according to information shared during a recent conference call to discuss its latest financial results. 

“Boosted by its affiliation with Best Buy, Current Health had its best commercial booking year ever last year,” said Corie Barry, CEO, during the call. “Forty percent of our provider clients launched in Q4, demonstrating our momentum.” 

Yet, Current Health remains a very small part of Best Buy’s overall business, Barry acknowledged. 

“We are excited about the momentum of care at home, but it is still a nascent emerging part of the health care industry,” she said. “We are essentially nurturing a start-up within a large-scale organization and leveraging Best Buy’s core assets, including the Geek Squad, to incubate a new business. The revenue contribution is currently very small and will take time to ramp as the care at home space matures and expands over the coming years.” 

Backing that up: During the Q&A portion of the call, not one analyst asked about Best Buy’s inroads into health care, opting instead to ask about the company’s efforts to restore margins in e-commerce and grow its My Best Buy program. 

But HME providers are on notice. Nearly 77% of the respondents to the HME Newspoll for this issue reported that, with these partnerships with health systems, Best Buy Health is starting to cross into home care/HME territory.

“Innovators and disruptors will always cross the line, it’s integral to the process,” wrote one respondent. “For example, it is now common for payers to provide physician primary care services and patient monitoring, so a company like Best Buy that has been selling health wearables like Fitbits for years, the apparent intrusion into HME is really a normal course of business. HME companies must innovate, or their products and services will become low margin commodities. Atrium-Best Buy patients and stakeholders will help steer the fulfillment process for HME products and services, like it or not.” 

Indeed, Best Buy is committed and motivated. 

“The role of technology within health care is becoming more important than ever, and our strategy is to enable care at home for everyone,” Barry said. “In fiscal ‘24, we expect to grow Best Buy Health sales faster than the base business.” 

As they say, watch this space.