Key takeaways:
- With demand for home care growing rapidly, AI offers the potential to improve quality for both direct care workers and their care recipients.
- Home care providers already are innovating with AI in areas such as scheduling, monitoring, and compliance.
- However, potential risks around privacy, accuracy, and bias must be addressed as AI is adopted more widely.
, /PRNewswire/ — The National Council on Aging (NCOA), the national voice for every person’s right to age well, has released a new research series examining the promises and risks of using Artificial Intelligence (AI) in home- and community-based care that helps older Americans and individuals with disabilities live independently.
Nearly 63 million family caregivers and more than 3.2 million paid home care workers provide personal care and support to individuals in the U.S. While demand for these services continues to grow as the population ages, persistent low wages and high turnover among home care workers threaten quality of care.
“When implemented well, AI can give home care workers more time to focus on people rather than paperwork,” said Nicole Howell, Director of Direct Care Workforce Development at NCOA. “Yet at the same time, we must continue to invest in job training and quality to ensure a strong workforce that can deliver the care every person deserves.”
The three-report series, A New Era of Care, explains what AI is, where it is already being used in home care, and what safeguards are needed to ensure that the technology strengthens—but does not replace—the human touch of home care.
The sector is already innovating with AI, the research shows. Some providers are adopting AI-powered tools to improve safety and monitoring—such as sensors, fall-detection systems, and predictive analytics. Others are using AI to streamline operations, including hiring, training, communication across care teams, reporting, and claims processing.
Yet, providers universally report that there are key risks that must be addressed. These include:
- Privacy and consent: Weak safeguards can expose or misuse sensitive client and worker data.
- Accuracy and reliability: False positives/negatives and generic outputs can waste time or cause harm.
- Bias and uneven outcomes: Tools may perform worse for disabled people, older adults, or rural communities and can treat groups differently.
- Human connection: Over-automation can erode judgment, autonomy, and relationship-based care.
- Usability and workflow: Poor design or poor integration can add tasks and increase stress.
- Compliance and liability: Errors can trigger HIPAA, Medicare/Medicaid, labor, and contractual risks if outputs are not vetted.
“AI can reduce burden for direct care workers and improve care, but only if it is designed and implemented with the needs and preferences of workers and clients at the center,” Howell said. “Rigorous, independent evaluations of AI tools can build trust and ensure that these technologies support, rather than undermine, the nature of home care jobs and workers, as well as the care received by older adults and people with disabilities.”
The full series is available at https://acl.gov/DCWcenter/AI.
About NCOA
The National Council on Aging (NCOA) is the national voice for every person’s right to age well. Working with thousands of national and local partners, we provide resources, best practices, and advocacy to create the conditions for everyone to age with health and economic well-being. Founded in 1950, we are the oldest national organization focused on older adults. Learn more at www.ncoa.org and @NCOAging.
This publication was supported by the Administration for Community Living (ACL), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award totaling $3,551,139 with 100% funding by ACL/HHS. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by ACL/HHS or the U.S. Government.
SOURCE National Council on Aging
