HONOLULU (KHON2) — Caregivers are in high demand, but one local company has found an innovative way to help kupuna and their families.
Vivia Cares recently received funding to help them expand into artificial intelligence, becoming the first in Hawaii to receive this type of award.
At Vivia Cares, families who need caregivers can purchase only what they need. So the model is task-based as opposed to time blocks.
“You can buy as little as a 15-minute wellness visit to just check in on your parent once a day while you’re at work, all the way up to a two or three-hour help taking them to a medical appointment,” Dew-Anne Langcaon, Vivia Cares, Inc. CEO, explained.
“With the caregiver shortage in our community, the caregivers are in high demand, and they’re generally going to the longer shifts. But most kupuna don’t need that much help. Just need a little bit of help, especially if their family is assisting them.”
Vivia caregivers are assigned about 15 to 20 families in close geographic areas, doing about 10 visits a day.
Scheduling can become very complex, which is why they are leaning on automation and AI.
“We partnered with Johns Hopkins, the team there through this National Institute of Aging grant, and they’re helping us to identify the variables, write the algorithms so that the scheduling can be done by the computer to suggest to the human scheduler, who still has to review it to make sure it makes sense, but it could be speed things up significantly.”
Vivia Cares is the first in Hawaii to receive such a grant, opening doors and making room for what really matters.
“Because we have one of the fastest aging populations, and at the same time, we’re experiencing a shrinkage in our working age and outmigration of the working age population. And the caregiver person has so many competing positions they could work for here in the state, it’s a special person that wants to do home caregiving, and it’s very difficult position to recruit for when there are many other positions they’re competing for.”
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“We have to change the model, because too many people are going unserved.”