More people than ever want to age in place, but payment and staffing concerns linger in the larger home-based care space. This emphasizes the need for scalable, efficient, high-quality solutions to meet the growing service demand. As a result, artificial intelligence  is emerging as a crucial tool. 

AI is a multifaceted field focused on creating systems that mimic and augment human intelligence. With AI comes the ability to learn, reason and solve problems. However, AI models rely on large data sets to learn, train and evolve, which can lead to privacy concerns.

“Home care agencies are actively reaching out to us to learn how we can help them care better and grow faster amidst caregiver shortages and rising costs,” Sensi.AI Co-Founder and CEO Romi Gubes told Home Health Care News.

Sensi.AI is an artificial intelligence company based in Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel, with offices in the United States. It uses audio technology to detect unusual events in a client’s home and relays the information to the clinical care team. For a relatively young company, it is expanding quickly. The company raised $31 million in Series B funding earlier this year.

This high demand indicates that the home care industry is shifting from a heavily human-dependent model to one that will regularly leverage AI. Agencies that are feeling the pressure of caregiver shortages see AI as a necessary solution, according to Gubes.

“Sensi allows us to take care of more clients, especially those needing around-the-clock care,” Care Around the Block Chief Operating Officer Casey Rausin said. “Without it, providing 24/7 coverage for a client would require five to seven people, which is hard to staff. We can now identify and prioritize when a senior truly needs a human caregiver, and for the rest, we supplement with Sensi as a safety net.” 

Care Around the Block is a Knoxville, Tennessee-based provider of professional care management, home care and dementia care services.

AI can potentially transform the home-based care space by enhancing community-level care, connecting vulnerable populations with providers earlier and delivering tailored support for managing chronic conditions at home. Home care providers are uniquely positioned to act as proactive responders, addressing client needs before they escalate into crises that may lead to repeated hospitalizations.

A question of privacy

While AI offers numerous potential benefits and opportunities to provide better care, alleviate staffing shortages, and aggregate and analyze personal data, concerns arise regarding privacy and keeping that data out of the hands of the wrong people.

Gubes said that her company takes proactive measures to educate its customers, ensuring they fully understand how the technology works to address privacy concerns before they arise. She also noted that audio-based technology provides privacy advantages by avoiding invasive video surveillance, while still being able to focus on specific sounds or patterns that may indicate the need for intervention.

Yet, audio technology does not completely circumvent privacy concerns.

“We work with some AI providers that are using audio monitoring,” Angelo Spinola, the home health, home care and hospice chair at the Polsinelli law firm, told HHCN. “Some privacy laws are triggered, sometimes at a state level, that require consents and notices. Normally, you want a privacy policy and consent from the client, caregiver and also something for visitors.” 

Spinola advised that there should be some notice when other people in the home haven’t consented to being monitored and the device is passively monitoring those individuals.

“Then there’s the scope of that notice,” he said. “I think that is important as well. People need to know why they are being monitored. It may initially be intended to improve the quality of care, but if there are purposes related to the caregiver or employee, that should also be indicated.”

As AI plays a larger role in health care, it’s essential to pay attention to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). However, incorporating AI while ensuring HIPAA compliance can be challenging. AI applications need vast amounts of data for training, including sensitive health information. It is an essential but difficult task to ensure this data is properly de-identified to protect patient privacy while still being useful for AI.

Health care organizations using this technology should carefully work with developers to understand how these tools work to ensure they meet HIPAA standards. In addition, it is crucial to regularly update policies and procedures, implement strong security measures and monitor AI tools for compliance issues.

Technology shouldn’t replace the human element

While technology is undoubtedly an important tool in helping caregivers complete their jobs more efficiently, it is still only a tool. The humans behind the technology should still take ownership of how it is used and what safeguards are put in place.

“I think everyone in health care is learning and evolving how they think about and use AI,” Bayada President and Chief Operating Officer Heather Helle told HHCN. “AI has tremendous promise in application, not just for making the back-end office more efficient, but also in helping us think about streamlining clinical workflows.”

However, according to Helle, AI should be seen as a co-pilot for a caregiver or clinician in the home.

“When you look at the pace of adoption and the pace of change that AI is helping usher in, it’s much faster than we’ve seen typically in health care,” Helle said. “We have to be thoughtful about the risks that come with that and ensure we have the appropriate guardrails and manage that.”

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