Becker's Hospital Review

29 INNOVATION Why Kaiser chose Best Buy Health as a tech partner By Laura Dyrda C hris Stenzel, vice president of national business development and innovation at Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Per- manente, played an integral role in the health system's partnership with Best Buy Health to develop remote patient-monitoring tools for older adults. He described how the partner- ship came about in an episode of the Becker's Healthcare podcast. "We frequently talk with innovators in health- care, particularly new entrants, including re- tailers, incumbent technology companies in- terested in healthcare and startup companies," said Mr. Stenzel. "We were engaged with Best Buy, and as we looked at how they could com- plement our assets and capabilities, we found a number of intriguing things about them." One of the most attractive aspects of Best Buy was their technology support strategy; the company's Geek Squad is within 10 minutes of about 80 percent of homes in the U.S., in- cluding many of Kaiser's 1.7 million Medicare members. e two initially partnered in 2019 on their pilot program for Lively Mobile Plus, a two-way communication device providing at-home or mobile care for older adults. ey rolled out the tools for all Kaiser Permanente Medicare members Oct. 5. e partnership also met the health system's alignment goals to create value. Mr. Stenzel said the health system aims to make it easy and convenient for members to access care, deliver high clinical quality and reduce costs. He reg- ularly sees new opportunities cross his desk, and the ones that stick out are based on proven technology and consumer experience, he said. "e Best Buy partnership is an example where we are not [developing] a radical new technology with artificial intelligence and machine learning; all of that is good, but what we are doing is we are making it a whole lot easier for our members and their caregivers to access resources and knowledge and have peace of mind in caring for those seniors," said Mr. Stenzel. And while many healthcare providers are nervous about the entry of retailers, pharma- cy chains and tech companies into healthcare, Mr. Stenzel said he is excited about it. "I see opportunities to partner with organizations like Best Buy and others to bring their massive footprint, whether it be digital or in person, as well as their consumer orientation and technol- ogy expertise to improve quality, the consumer experience and lower costs," he said. A big opportunity he sees is partnering with companies to develop digital health technol- ogy around mental health and cognitive be- havioral health. n Amazon launches online pharmacy By Maia Anderson A mazon on Nov. 17 launched Amazon Pharmacy, an online pharmacy allowing patients to purchase their prescriptions through the retail giant's website. Patients can add their insurance information and manage prescriptions through Amazon Pharma- cy, and Amazon Prime members receive free two- day delivery of their medications. Prime mem- bers also receive up to an 80 percent discount off generic drugs and 40 percent off brand-name drugs when paying without insurance. Amazon Pharmacy also has pharmacists avail- able 24/7 by phone to answer patients' questions about their medications. "As more and more people look to complete everyday errands from home, pharmacy is an important and needed addition to the Amazon online store," said Doug Herrington, senior vice president of North American consumer at Ama- zon. Prescriptions are delivered in discreet packag- ing to patients' homes. All prescriptions must be given by a licensed healthcare provider, and Amazon Pharmacy won't deliver schedule II con- trolled drugs, including most opioids. n Fitbit gets $2.5M to test wearable tech COVID-19 early detection algorithm on Northwell Health employees By Jackie Drees T he U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command awarded Fitbit $2.5 million to develop wearable tech capabilities that can detect COVID-19 before symptoms start and test the de- vices with Northwell Health, according to an Oct. 29 news release. The Medical Technology Enterprise Consortium award will support Fitbit's ongoing work as well as help the company start a study of the tech alongside New Hyde Park, N.Y.-based Northwell Health's Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research. The study aims to validate a Fitbit COVID-19 early detection algo- rithm, and as part of the initiative, Fitbit will distribute thousands of wearable devices to Northwell employees. The individuals will then be notified of potential illness and be tested for COVID-19 to assess and verify results. The study builds upon Fitbit's work in COVID-19 research, which includes a collaborative research consortium with the Scripps Re- search Institute and Stanford (Calif.) Medicine that launched earlier in 2020. As part of the initiative, Fitbit is conducting a study to deter- mine whether it can create an algorithm to detect COVID-19 before symptoms start; early findings show that the algorithm can identify almost 50 percent of COVID-19 cases before users report having symptoms with nearly 70 percent specificity. n

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