6 Home-Based Care Leaders Share Time-Saving Strategies For Frontline Teams 

Every minute clinicians and caregivers spend on documentation and scheduling is a minute they could otherwise spend with patients. Home-based care companies are looking for ways to give frontline workers some of that time back.

Home Health Care News asked six senior leaders at home-based care companies how they help frontline staff save time.

Their answers range from AI-assisted documentation and shift matching to mobile tools, training and operational support. Some leaders described approaches they have already implemented; others described strategies they are piloting or developing through broader investments.

Below are their responses. Comments have been lightly edited for clarity.

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At VNA Health Group, we’re piloting AI documentation tools with home care and hospice clinicians to help reduce the time they spend writing notes. These tools capture the conversation during a visit and help turn it into documentation, so that clinicians can focus more of their attention on the patient.

Across our AI documentation pilots, clinicians have reported reduced documentation time, more efficient visit completion, more face-to-face time with patients and less work left to finish after visits. They’ve also reported better capture of details that might otherwise be missed.

We’re also learning that getting this right takes time. The tools need to fit our home care and hospice workflows, and clinicians need time to review and correct the documentation they produce. Their feedback helps us understand where the technology is useful and where it needs improvement. For us, success means less time spent documenting care and more time available to provide it.

– Wendy Ebner, chief of home care center for excellence and vice president of clinical operations, south, at VNA Health Group 

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The focus for Home Helpers Home Care has been on giving franchise owners the tools and support to make daily operations easier for their teams. That includes technology for scheduling and documentation, alongside investments in AI-enhanced care tools and world-class training.

From the franchisor’s perspective, technology is only one part of the answer. The National Support Center has strengthened practical guidance through the Client Journey Implementation Guide, which gives franchise owners clear processes for inquiries, client onboarding and follow-up. Through Agencies of Excellence, new franchisees can visit certified offices and see those practices firsthand. IMPACT Selling training also gives franchisees and their teams a structured approach to building referral relationships. These resources build on a two-year onboarding program and ongoing coaching.

Training extends to caregivers, too. Home Helpers Home Care’s relationship with CareAcademy gives franchise owners access to flexible online education for their teams, simplifying how training is assigned and completed.

Together, these changes help franchise owners spend less time figuring out operational processes and more time growing their businesses and supporting their teams. The goal is to ease administrative demands on caregivers so they can focus on providing compassionate care and helping clients maintain independence and dignity at home.

– Emma Dickison, president and CEO of Home Helpers Home Care  

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Interim is consistently investing in AI tools that are helping to alleviate the administrative burdens that caregivers currently face. The implementation of responsible AI tools will create more time between caregivers and patients in the moments that matter. We’ve also organized an AI Advisory Board, which will support the integration of these tools across caregiver and franchisee workflows. Our approach to using AI tools will always be people-first, as our local caregivers and franchisees adapt to this new reality. 

– Rexanne Domico, president and CEO of Interim HealthCare Inc 

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Intelligent matching takes a huge mental load off our schedulers. It recommends the right nurses and caregivers for each shift based on their availability, skills, preferences and location. That means more clients are served and more caregivers are scheduled to create a better client and employee experience. 

– Zack Woods, chief operating officer of BrightStar Care 

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One of the longstanding challenges for home health clinicians is the time spent on necessary but time-consuming documentation. To help reduce this burden and to give our teams more time to focus more on patient care, we’ve integrated Nestmed’s AI-powered clinical documentation technology into their daily workflows. The platform uses ambient AI technology during patient visits and automatically generates structured notes that clinicians review, approve and transfer into the electronic medical record with one single click.

As more clinicians are trained and provide feedback, we’ve continued refining the technology. In working with Nestmed, uploads are approximately twice as fast, recordings now begin uploading during visits, and notes appear section by section so clinicians can start reviewing them and complete their documentation sooner.

This tech has helped reduce time spent documenting, ease administrative burden, and allows our clinicians to focus on what matters most, their patients: and deliver personalized, one-on-one care.

– Brenda Riordan, senior vice president of home health, hospice and care management solutions at VNS Health 

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Within the personal care team at VNS Health, we’ve expanded our relationship with Caribou to adopt their shift-booking and AI-powered tools, which integrate directly with HHA Exchange to make everyday tasks easier for our home health aides and the teams supporting them.

Now, using one mobile app, aides can more easily clock in and out, access schedules and plans of care, accept new cases, take required training and communicate with the office directly — all from their smartphones. Caribou’s VNS Health Rewards platform is also integrated, automating caregiver recognition and incentives, reducing administrative work for coordinators and schedulers.

We’ve seen strong results, including 95% caregiver engagement and 96% electronic visit verification compliance. Most importantly, our aides, who do incredibly important and often demanding work, tell us these tools have made their jobs easier, allowing them to focus more on their clients.

– Tom Cocozza, senior vice president of personal care at VNS Health