How Best Buy Plans to Facilitate Provider-Patient Connections to Further RPM

Over the past decade, several high-profile technology and retail companies have made inroads into the healthcare industry. Among these new entrants is a nearly 60-year-old retailer: Best Buy.

Though Best Buy remains a prominent consumer electronics retail company, it has made significant investments to bolster its health-focused division. First, Best Buy bought GreatCall, Inc., a connected health and personal emergency response services provider, in 2018 for $800 million in cash. Then, last year, the retailer purchased remote care services provider Current Health for $400 million.

At a keynote session at the 2nd Annual Remote Patient Monitoring Virtual Summit in July, Diana Gelston, vice president of virtual care sales, marketing, and client success at Best Buy Health, discussed a wide array of topics, including the evolution of healthcare consumerism, Best Buy's healthcare-focused plans, and how the company is differentiating itself from other new entrants into healthcare.

PANDEMIC DROVE CARE-AT-HOME DEMAND, BUT TECH BARRIERS REMAIN

Though healthcare consumerism is not a new trend, the pandemic led to a rapid increase in demand for convenience and comfort. A natural outgrowth of that has been the demand for more remote care options.

"We want to be cared for in the comfort of our home," Gelston said. "We don't really want that strain and the stress of being away from our loved ones, from our pets, from the normal routines of our life. Data has shown that by getting care at home…we get healthier. [For example,] we're not getting nosocomial infections associated with being within the four walls of a…brick-and-mortar institution."

In response to the demand for at-home care options, healthcare providers have implemented and expanded their virtual care offerings, including remote patient monitoring (RPM) using various health devices and wearables.

"But standing [those offerings] up was not trivial," she said. "You would see doctors, nurses, all sorts of clinicians and people really working to kit technology and bring it into the home. And then what happens is, 'oh, holy cow, how does this work when it's in the home?'"

Digital health literacy and technology access are still major barriers to virtual care, especially RPM adoption. Patients require an established infrastructure, like reliable internet connectivity and one-on-one technical support, to successfully use and benefit from RPM, Gelston said.

To overcome these patient-facing issues and expand the use of RPM, providers need support. And, according to Gelston, this is where retailers like Best Buy come in.

BEST BUY'S PLANS TO SUPPORT RPM

With a long history in consumer electronics, Best Buy has supplied various healthcare devices, like hearing aids and non-invasive blood pressure cuffs, directly to consumers for years. But with its recent multimillion-dollar acquisitions, the retailer is doubling down on healthcare.

"The pandemic really sort of opened up that opportunity, and of course, retailers are prime to kind of come in and continue to be that connection between patients and providers," Gelston said.

In particular, Best Buy aims to support these connections through its Current Health acquisition. Current Health's platform enables providers to remotely monitor and adjust treatments for patients with chronic and acute conditions.

This, combined with the retailer's experience in consumer-facing electronics and the inherent challenges in their uptake, can help further RPM use, according to Gelston.

For example, Best Buy's geek squad can intervene when patients have difficulties using remote home monitoring devices like wearables. This not only helps support patients who may not be technologically savvy but also frees clinicians from having to provide tech support.

"There's no reason that a doctor should be spending half or greater amount of time on the phone with their patients [to] turn on an iPhone and things like that," Gelston said. "We can do better, and we are."

The company also aims to help connect RPM patients with devices suited to their unique needs.

"We're not designing every device in the world," she said. "We're bringing the ecosystem of curated devices with our insights into recommendations of what devices a person may want to purchase over a different type — it really, kind of, takes a village to bring care to the home."

WHY BEST BUY'S PATH INTO HEALTHCARE IS DIFFERENT FROM COMPETITORS

Amazon, Walmart, and Microsoft are just some retail and tech companies making inroads into the healthcare industry. But Best Buy plans to chart a slightly different path.

Best Buy's main healthcare goal is to support providers in care delivery. While the Amazons and Walmarts of the world appear to be interested in launching their own healthcare services and becoming, to an extent, providers themselves, Best Buy wants to keep care in the hands of clinicians, according to Gelston.

"We want to enable that care," she said. "We want to make those connections from patient to physician. We don't want to make care judgments for that patient. Let's leave that in the hands of the experts."

This strategy speaks to Best Buy's core mission: enriching people's lives through technology.

"Amazon, you'll see going into the care space, Walmart too," Gelston said. "We really want to bring an ecosystem of solutions… Best Buy doesn't want to take over from a health system at all. Best Buy Health wants to enrich and help save lives through technology in those [patient-provider] connections."

This thinking forms the basis of the company's partnerships with providers, which Gelston believes could help bolster clinician buy-in.

"We're going to make sure that the tech is working," she said. "We're going to make sure that the connections are working. We're going to make sure that [clinicians are] getting the data that [they] need to make the decisions, but [they] get to make the decisions."

But, as with others in the RPM arena, Best Buy will have to contend with an uncertain regulatory future.

The pandemic-era flexibilities that helped expand the adoption and use of virtual care, including RPM, have been extended until five months after the COVID-19 public health emergency ends. But the fate of those flexibilities beyond that point is unclear.

Bills are being introduced in Congress to make the regulatory flexibilities permanent and ensure continued reimbursement, but it may not be enough.

"We can do a whole heck a lot more than we're doing today," Gelston said. "And we got to do more. We have to do more. Washington's got to do more to help support us in our efforts. And yes, there are bills in play, like I said. There are bills in play, but we can certainly do better than that."