Children's Hospital gets its own Geek Squad for patients and parents
BBY | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- Best Buy is donating a Geek Squad to Children's Hospital in Minneapolis, where its tech support experts will help patients and parents with everything from computer bugs to Web pages to uncharged cell phones.
The tech support will help patients stay connected to friends, schools and the outside world, said Dr. Alan Goldbloom, president and chief executive of Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota. It will also help parents telecommute to their jobs while spending time with their hospitalized children.
"When kids are in with serious illnesses, we want to make it as easy as possible for the family to be here 24/7 for them," Goldbloom said.
"To be able to do that, especially with parents working, they've got to be able to stay in touch."
The four-person Geek Squad will probably see a different set of technical challenges than the teams located in Best Buy retail stores. Workers may loan digital cameras to parents and help them upload pictures of their children, for example, or help parents set up CaringBridge Web sites or blogs.
The first Geek Squad in a U.S. hospital is a natural fit for Children's, Goldbloom said. The hospital just completed a renovation and outfitted patient rooms with flat-screen TVs and game consoles.
"A hospital can be a pretty isolating experience," he said. "Children's has worked hard to change that."
The Children's Hospital in St. Paul is in the early stages of a similar renovation.
Goldbloom commended Best
Buy officials for coming up with the idea and making a long-term commitment to the Minneapolis hospital. He stressed that the Geek Squad will handle only consumer electronics and not the hospital's medical devices and equipment.
"We'll leave that to our biomedical engineers," he said.
Jeremy Olson can be reached at 651-228-5583.
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