Best Buy Expands Focus to Health Care

It may not be ready to take on the Amazons and Walmarts of the world in pushing into the health care market, but big box technology retailer Best Buy has identified health care as a growth priority. The latest evidence: Best Buy is the first U.S. retailer to sell exclusively a telehealth device kit that enables physicians to remotely examine patients for things like ear infections, coughs and upper respiratory issues, sore throat and sinus pain.

Selling for less than $300, the >Tytohome — from an Israeli startup of the same name — now is available on Best Buy’s website and in some of its stores. A large rollout is being planned.

This is Best Buy’s latest foray into health care after buying the >mobile device and emergency call service GreatCall for $800 million in 2018. That acquisition built upon its existing Assured Living service that uses home-based motion sensors and monitoring technologies to prevent health crises in adults 65 and older.

Best Buy also has been busy in recent months assembling its health care leadership team, including naming Asheesh Saksena as president of Best Buy Health.