Artificial Intelligence seems to be on the tip of most health care leaders’ tongues heading into 2024 – and the topic is certainly finding its way into home care conversations, too.
In fact, many home care leaders are already exploring how to incorporate AI into their organizations, getting the best use out of emerging solutions.
“I think there’s both reward and risk there,” Home Helpers President and CEO Emma Dickison said during a recent Home Health Care News webinar. “There’s all kinds of AI that I think can support the home care model.”
Just a few possible uses of AI in home care include improved home-monitoring technology, virtual assistants and marketing solutions, according to Dickison, whose company delivers in-home care services to seniors across a franchise network of more than 300 locations.
However, she was also quick to point out that any AI solution would need to be something cost-effective for home care providers.
“We’re looking at a few, from a competitive differentiation standpoint, that would be able to help us understand and give insights and patterns into care and activity in the home, without being big brother,” Dickison said. “Because nobody wants that.”
Another way Home Helpers is using AI is to pinpoint expansion opportunities.
“We use AI in our franchise-development process around identifying potential new franchisees, and doing some specific psychographic targeting,” Dickison said. “Internally, for the team, where we see the biggest lift with AI … is in the marketing department. I think it’s going to spill into how we can document care logs. There are just so many applications.”
Though Home Helpers has embraced AI, the company still proceeds with caution.
“We don’t allow anyone, internally, to use the free version of ChatGPT because that feeds into their algorithms,” Dickison said. “It can give away your IP, your proprietary information, etc. We make sure that we use a premium version. You just want to be really careful and put guardrails up, and internal policies that recognize how and when you can use AI in your business. What gives you the best reward and assumes the least risk.”
Similar to Home Helpers, Family Resource Home Care is already utilizing things like AI marketing tools and solutions that help the company in crafting compelling messages.
Jeff Wiberg, CEO of Family Resource Home Care, believes that some of the more advanced AI solutions are still in development.
“Getting to the core of where I think [AI] is going to go, which is [having] machine learning around doing client caregiver matching and things of that nature, I think we’re a ways out from that right now,” he said during the webinar.
With that in mind, Family Resource Home Care is investing with the partners that are already serving the health care space.
The company is working with these partners to help their organizations better understand how to apply AI to some of the fundamental day-to-day elements of running a home care agency.
Ultimately, Wiberg believes that home care providers may need to wait a while longer before the industry sees AI’s full potential in the space.
“I love the home care space, but it’s not the sexiest space to do that kind of AI development,” he said. “I think that the home care space will come a little bit later than some other areas or other industries. We’ll be able to watch some of those trends in other industries develop before it becomes fully matured in the home care space, but I think it would be foolish to not pay attention to it.”
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