Understanding Key Stakeholders' Perspectives Towards Artificial Intelligence in Home Care Work
New research from the Initiative on Home Care Work at Cornell University’s Center for Applied Research on Work (CAROW) finds that collaboratively developing AI guidelines within existing home care policy is a practical way to help ensure that AI supports rather than undermines care quality and the care workforce.
Key Takeaway: AI could support home care, but only if aides, patients, and other relevant stakeholders help shape how it is governed.
Why it matters: Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools for scheduling, monitoring, and care coordination are spreading rapidly in home care. Little is known about how home health aides (HHAs) and other key stakeholders in home care perceive and use these tools.
What the team did: They interviewed 43 participants across five stakeholder groups: 11 HHAs, 10 home care agency leaders and staff, 14 worker advocates, 5 clinicians, and 3 technology company leaders and staff. Participants were asked about their perceptions of AI’s potential benefits and risks in home care work, data collection and usage, and trust and safety. To help elicit these responses, the interviews were grounded in three real-world examples of AI tools: matching aides with patients, monitoring in-home interactions, and helping coordinate care.
What they found: Participants saw both promise and risk in AI for home care, and their views fell into four themes:
- Benefits: Participants saw potential for improved documentation and coordination across caregivers, better job matching and retention, and greater efficiency gains for agencies and unions.
- Risks: Participants worried about dehumanized care, weaker patient-provider trust, increased data-entry burdens for aides, and wage pressure that could worsen workforce shortages.
- Data and privacy: Participants raised concerns about who is responsible for keeping the data accurate and about surveillance in patients' homes. Aides also felt they had little say ("If my agency tells me, we're going to put AI in your patient's home, I cannot say no"). Limited AI literacy among aides may also limit their ability to participate in advocacy efforts.
- Governance: Nearly everyone wanted clear rules governing the use of AI. Because AI adoption in home care is still in its early stages, there is a window to set standards and labor protections before the tools become entrenched.
Photo Credit: Opeoluwa Fasanya
