The Future of Home Care: New Technology Tackles Worker Attrition

AlayaCare has developed innovative software to combat worker attrition in home-based care. The software uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Large Language Models (LLMs) to help mitigate issues that may lead to care workers quitting.  

An estimated 65,000 workers in the aged care sector are leaving their jobs each year according to a report published in 2022 by The Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA). This report speculates this will lead to a shortage of between 30,000 – 35,000 direct care workers annually. 

LLMs and predictive algorithms can help to combat these high attrition rates with innovative technological solutions. One such solution is the employee retention and churn predictor which uses multiple data points to inform employers of ‘at-risk’ workers with low work satisfaction. Employers can use this information to address these issues proactively.  

Naomi Goldapple, Senior Vice President of Data & Intelligence at AlayaCare, explains the mechanism behind this model. “This is an AI model that gathers information about care workers’ top three complaints: inconsistent hours, poor scheduling, and the time lag between hire date and first visit scheduled. It uses this data to predict who is at risk of quitting by reviewing their perceived satisfaction in their role.” 

Tackling these top three complaints is a high priority for AlayaCare. Annette Hili, General Manager Australia & New Zealand at AlayaCare, highlights inefficient scheduling as a root cause of these complaints.  

“We’re being told time and time again that scheduling is a challenge for our Australian and New Zealand clients,” explains Hili. “It’s time consuming and costly for the employers, as it requires a complex juggling of availability, skillset and matching the right care workers to the right shift. When it is not done well it can lead to care worker burnout and exhaustion. We realised we need to offer a scheduling solution that simplifies this important work and reduces the scheduler’s workload.” 

According to AlayaCare Senior Vice President, Goldapple, scheduling challenges can easily be managed with the right technology. “We’ve created a tool that automates matching care workers with vacant visit clients, removing manual guesswork and human biases and errors in scheduling. This ensures the right care workers are matched with the right clients based on skillsets and client needs. It also optimises the physical routing of care workers to reduce drive time between visits, which they love.” 

These are two of the topics being discussed at AlayaCare’s upcoming roadshow, Transformative technology: Navigating the landscape of AI, data and large language models. Both Goldapple and Sarah Khalid, Data & Intelligence Product Manager for AlayaCare, are travelling from Canada to roll out the latest technology in Australia. 

“We’re so excited to bring these innovations to Australia,” says Goldapple. “Now more than ever we must lean into using technology to help solve some of the imminent problems we’re facing in the home and disability sectors across the world. Only then can we see the many ways that technology will transform the way we deliver care.”