Widespread healthcare and home care staff shortages have created a huge void that exerts heavy pressure on the currently employed staff. And guess what? These shortages are expected to continue for a while now.
The home care staff have to perform various manual tasks every day, such as scheduling medication refills, taking vitals, conducting wellness checks, etc. Stress on the nursing staff has been piling up, which eventually makes them feel fatigued, burned out, and heading for the exits. A survey conducted on 1,327 workers from hospitals, nursing homes, outpatient clinics, and home healthcare providers revealed that 62% had felt stress related to COVID-19 (Sudo, 2021). Personal Support Workers (PSWs) have dealt with burnout throughout this pandemic. Many are overwhelmed and exhausted.
What is causing home care staff burnout?
If we consider the nature of the industry, the volume of patients or clients, and the shortage of resources, these burnouts are caused by unfair treatment, pressurizing workloads, unclear job duties or roles, little or no communication from the manager, and unreasonable time frames. These caregivers have to multitask and make decisions that take a heavy toll on their physical health.
Not to forget, overtime or extra shifts are also there to blame on. Moreover, while in the patient’s home, workers have to conform to their new or controlled environment, which is one of the reasons that lead to burnout. It is said that half of all the caregivers working in the home care domain tend to experience burnout at some point in time. In simple words, these burnouts occur as caregivers help and take care of their patients, and they simply forget about themselves.
These burnouts are characterized by multiple factors, such as
- Exertion
- A sense of detachment
- Frustration or anxiety
- Panic attacks
- Inability to face demand
- Headache and extreme fatigue
- Body ache
- Change or loss of appetite
- Sleeplessness
It doesn’t stop here, a study by the American Psychological Association indicates that employees with burnouts “are 2.6 times as likely to be actively seeking a different job, 63% more likely to take a sick day, and 23% more likely to visit the emergency room” (Moss, 2019). Which ultimately increases the caregivers’ attrition rate in the domain.
How can AI save Caregivers from these burnouts?
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Automates manual and administrative tasks:
Home care has an overwhelming amount of repetitive or manual administrative tasks that consume a heavy chunk of caregivers’ energy and time. These tasks include scheduling, billing, reporting, testing, coding, ordering, etc.
These tasks simply disconnect the caregiver from the core duties and their interaction with patients. AI can automate these tasks using, Natural Language Processing, Speech Recognition, Intelligent Document Processing, and Machine Learning. For example, AI can smartly create electronic health records by transcribing your voice notes. It can generate billing codes from your diagnoses, suggest optimal schedules and appointments, and also provide automated reminders and alerts. This dramatically reduces the stress and workload on caregivers as AI takes care of these tasks with precision and accuracy.
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Augments decisions:
The complexity and uncertainty of clinical decisions requires a large amount of data to be processed with guidelines. Here, AI can create magic by augmenting your decisions using data analytics, predictive modeling, and predictive analytics. For example, AI dives deep into a patient’s data and medical history, compares it with similar cases in the past with outcomes, and identifies and suggests potential diagnoses and treatments. It also ranks them based on their probability and efficacy. This adds speed and accuracy to caregivers’ service by expediting the diagnosis and shortening the treatment cycle by guiding them with potential treatment.
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Facilitates communication:
The lack of proper communication and coordination with patients and among home care professionals can lead to bad or poor patient experience and downgrade the quality of the care. It can create errors, delays, conflicts, and dissatisfaction. With AI-powered chatbots, virtual assistants, and telehealth platforms, this communication can be facilitated. It adds a touch-based or voice-operated patient experience that enhances the quality of the care. For example, AI chatbots solve patient queries with customized solutions, guide them to opt for healthcare or home care services, and coordinate with their assigned caregiver. Virtual assistants reduce caregiver’s stress by managing tasks, appointments, and messages. AI-assisted telehealth platforms seamlessly connect caregivers with their patients and colleagues remotely through audio, video, or text mediums.
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Fosters Learning:
Lack of learning development opportunities can also cause burnout for caregivers. They tend to feel bored, stagnant and incomplete. AI fosters an adaptive learning system, feedback mechanism, and gamification that provides personalized and engaging learning experiences to caregivers. For example, during training, AI can create learning tailored to caregivers’ skills, pace, needs, goals, and preferences. Gamification makes learning fun and rewarding. These add-ons help caregivers to keep up with the learning and stay hooked.
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Supports self-care practices:
Lack of good health and self-care practices can result in caregivers’ poor mental, physical and emotional health. AI supports and empowers caregivers to look after themselves during their busy shifts. For example, AI-powered wearable devices, mobile apps, and online platforms can monitor, manage, and improve home care professionals’ health, sleeping patterns, vital activities, and stress levels. These devices or platform also suggests mindful exercises, relaxation, and stress-handling techniques. Caregivers can also connect to their support groups, mentors and peers through these platforms to ask for help if needed.
Conclusion
The above offerings are just snapshots of what and how AI can help home health professionals to avoid burnout. AI can go beyond these when it comes to specific home health domains such as age care, disabled care, or children’s care. With AutomationEdge’s Generative AI and Automation, home health agencies and caregivers can certainly get away with these burnouts. Here is one success story that changes the way home health provider operates and elevates their patient’s experience with AutomationEdge’s Generative AI and Automation.
