Boston-based Mass General Brigham’s Home Hospital is one of the largest hospital-at-home models in the country. The health system has announced that it will work with Best Buy Health to develop solutions to support the continued shift of healthcare to patients’ homes.
The two organizations will develop customized systems and capabilities to enhance the experience for patients receiving Home Hospital care as well as for the multi-dimensional care team that provides it.
Their first priority is to scale and support Home Hospital. This technology-enabled clinical delivery model will expand access to Massachusetts residents choosing to receive acute-level hospital care in the comfort of their home. The organizations said the collaboration will also help address one of the biggest challenges the healthcare industry faces today — workforce shortages.
Mass General Brigham also operates the largest Medicare certified home health business in New England, offering skilled and supportive services for patients who are homebound during the course of an illness or injury. Together, Home Hospital and Home Care are components of Mass General Brigham’s overall Healthcare at Home portfolio, which will now be supported by Best Buy Health.
In addition to developing new solutions, Mass General Brigham will leverage Minneapolis-based Best Buy Health’s existing technology and support services, including:
• Current Health, he company’s care-at-home platform, which connects patients to nurses, paramedics, advanced practitioners and physicians;
• Services that enable better coordination of how home-based care is delivered and logistics management to support the patient’s broad care team; and
• Lively Mobile Plus, their personal emergency response system (PERS) device, which can detect falls and enable patients to contact an urgent response agent.
“At Mass General Brigham, we are building the integrated healthcare system of the future across the entire continuum of patient care needs,” said Heather O’Sullivan, president of Healthcare at Home at Mass General Brigham, in a statement. “As a recognized leader of Home Hospital services, we understand that consumers are increasingly choosing the comfort of care at home as an alternative to traditional, facility-based delivery settings. By enabling our world-class provider services with technology that matters, we are elevating system capabilities and, most importantly, improving clinical outcomes for the communities we serve today while preparing for the future delivery of care more broadly.”
As part of this relationship, Best Buy Health and Mass General Brigham said they would create equitable, academic opportunities for individuals interested in pursuing nursing, paramedic and digital technology careers by offering scholarships to students choosing the at-home setting of care as their desired professional environment. They will also work to bring care in the home to the forefront of curriculum within these industries to further support the growing home healthcare model.
