The announcement that Best Buy plans to open a Geek Squad outlet inside the Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis seems, at first, incongruous. “Geek Squad?” we said. “Haven’t these families already suffered enough?” Except this Geek Squad isn’t there to profit off sick kids—they’re there to help. No, really.

The plan for the Geek Squad hospital outpost is to consult on hospital’s renovations, which include fun consumer electronics for patients’ use. But they’re also there to…get your hankies ready…provide free tech support to patients’ families.

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.

Well done, Best Buy. We wish this project well. No, really. They’ll probably even plug in video game systems for free.

Geek Squad setting up shop in Children’s Hospital? [City Pages] (Thanks, stir0021!)
Children’s Hospital gets its own Geek Squad for patients and parents [Trading Markets]

(Photo: The Joy Of The Mundane)

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