Four factors underpin AI potential in health and home care

The US population is aging and will be needing more care. You read it every day in the popular press – the bad news about the 65+ and their future care burden and the good news about the 65+ and their wealth (22% of US spending in 2022). Even with wealth, older adults at some point in their lives will need some level of assistance. While professional care providers will play a key role, increasingly their work will be augmented by software -- apps, machine learning and conversational AI. Why?

• Healthcare delivery is migrating away from hospitals. As care delivery and consumer expectations change, the traditional fee-for-service model has already morphed into the new era of health-care consumerism – a patient-organized mix of self-care, urgent care, and in-home care.  The last-ditch choices will be emergency room visit or long wait for a doctor visit.   Consider changes that have taken place in recent years that will drive growth in apps for self-care.

• Consumers are all in on self-diagnosis and care. Older adults seek information online about health symptoms – and likely does not boost anxiety about their conditions, but possibly mitigate it. Self-diagnosis is increasingly prevalent among the 93% of consumers with access to the Internet. Between 60 and 80% of adults have searched online for health information.  While sometimes incorrect, self-diagnosis is here to stay.  

• Health risk identification moved away from institutions to the pharmacy and home. 80% of what happens to our health happens outside a medical setting. Patient burnout is a growing issue – long waits, short appointments, large bills, pushing people towards telehealth interactions as a first step. However, telehealth represents only only 5% of healthcare claims, with utilization concentrated on mental health, hypertension ranking high on the list of claims.  

• Tech will assist work in home and home healthcare. Home care growth projections are inversely proportional to worker availability.  Aging in place preferences parallel demand for private duty home care and home health.  Home care executives confirm that they are turning away 25% of prospective clients due to lack of workers to provide care.  Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 22% job growth outpacing all other occupations. And while demand and costs are up – availability of workers is down. The supply-demand problem has also hit home health care even with outside funding sources has the same issues.  

[Stay tuned for new report next month, AI and the Future of Care Work]