Mayo Clinic Partners with Best Buy for Senior Care Technology Lab

The Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation (CFI) recently announced that Best Buy is the founding consortium member of a new “living lab” in the Charter House, a Rochester continuing care retirement community.

The Mayo Clinic CFI is collaborating with the Mayo Clinic’s Robert and Arlene Kogod Center for Aging and the Charter House to further aging in place initiatives by creating the Healthy Aging & Independent Living (HAIL) Lab. The lab will be used for focus groups, designing, prototyping and piloting new services and technologies with voluntary participation from Charter House residents, as well as other community agencies.

“The goal of the HAIL Lab is to understand the needs of seniors and develop products and services that will help them live longer, more independent lives,” says Nicholas LaRusso, M.D., medical director of the Mayo Clinic CFI.

Best Buy’s participation in the consortium follows its exploration of the potential growth of wireless-enabled health-related devices.

“We believe technology has the potential to foster healthy, productive lives by enabling easier access to information and medical care,” says Kurt Hulander, senior director of health platforms at Best Buy. “Our partnership with Mayo Clinic will help us better understand the full potential for health technologies with patients who need them most.”

Best Buy has already made investments into the health and wellness technologies arena, expanding its portfolio of health-related retail offerings with blood pressure monitors, pedometers, fitness watches and other connected devices.