Five observations from The Future of AI and Home Care research

Executives see the possibilities for AI in home care. Home care and home health care are labor intensive industries. Hands-on work is historically preceded and followed by paper-based documents and tracking tools. However, it is increasingly likely that home care companies will move quickly past ‘Year One’ of AI as the labor-saving benefits are seen and realized. Interviewees, including agencies and tech firms, note the changes underway. Some are engaged in various pilot projects of AI-enabled tools, others are doing implementations, still others are already deployed. For example, report discussions surfaced the following:

Manual recordkeeping will (gradually) be replaced by AI-enabled tools.  Interviewees described the continued presence of manual recordkeeping in some home (and home health) settings, recording the visit in an in-home book and re-entering the information at the office. Similarly, consider a home visit from a nurse who today takes notes so that they can later enter data into the EMR. But today, there are scribing tools that listen and take notes during a heath interaction, freeing the practitioner to focus on the patient.

AI tools are listening in on intake and assessment calls, contributing to coaching workers.  Today AI is already in use helping with in-home assessments. Using a process to ‘Record, transcribe, and coach’ home care aides, the software can offer prompting with additional questions – as well as automatically drafting a care plan. For example, software in the future can distinguish between one voice and other people in the room, labeling the voices and generating questions that can feed a medication list.

Remote monitoring and wellness check-ins supplement in-person visits.  Telehealth software enables remote monitoring of acute and chronic conditions in the home. Ambient software today can capture notes to submit claims to Medicare -- and can also listen for other circumstances in the home when an aide isn’t present. For example, devices from Sensi.ai can be plugged in to multiple room outlets and pick up sounds that indicate an individual is on the floor, alerting a practitioner to take urgent action.

Front door chatbots – initial contact with AI voice agents can also be used for assignments or referrals.  Front-door chatbots are increasingly being used in healthcare, but there are those, for example from Botco.ai, that support initial contact through a home care website or call center. These queries could be people looking for care, but the right chatbot also supports inquiries about job opportunities. Depending on the inquiry content, a caller can be referred to the geographically correct home or home healthcare agency that has the in-house capabilities that are needed.  

AI tech can follow a person from bed to the rest of life.  One-third of life is spent sleeping. Although our healthcare system does not reimburse tech used for safety or prevention, with 43% of women aged 75 living alone, sensor tech could be used to help keep them safe once get up. Care Daily, for example, can detect if a family member got out of bed, took medicine, turned off the stove, or interacted with other people. 

[Note: Stay tuned -- this topic will be discussed at the What's Next Longevity Venture Summit June 10-11.  The report will be published in June, 2025.]