Insider Brief
- AlayaCare, in partnership with home care providers Acclaim and Bien Chez Soi, has initiated a $3.2 million AI project funded partly by DIGITAL, aiming to enhance home care services in Canada through the application of large language models (LLMs) and predictive algorithms.
- The project will develop an LLM-based AI assistant for home-based care, offering functionalities like natural language summarization, risk dashboards, and decision support, aimed at reducing hospitalizations and adverse events among patients by improving care scheduling and risk mitigation.
- This initiative is expected to increase care workers’ caseload capacity by 10–15% and reduce the waitlist for chronic care patients by 10%, contributing to significant improvements in healthcare delivery, efficiency, and outcomes in the home care sector.
PRESS RELEASE — MONTREAL, QC /ACCESSWIRE /February 29, 2024 — AlayaCare, a leading home care technology platform, announced today a new $3.2 million AI project in collaboration with home care providers Acclaim and Bien Chez Soi. The venture is being supported through an up to $1.1M co-investment from DIGITAL, Canada’s Global Innovation Cluster for digital technologies, as part of their programming to drive the commercialization and adoption of made-in-Canada AI solutions.
The global healthcare industry is currently facing unprecedented challenges, particularly in the home care sector, where labour shortages and slim profit margins are putting a strain on providers. In response to these challenges, AlayaCare plans to leverage the potential of large language models (LLMs) and predictive algorithms to enhance their flagship AC Cloud product. AC Cloud is an extensive health record platform used by over 700 home care service providers across North America and Australia.
The anticipated features powered by AI will include the first-ever LLM-based smart AI assistant for home-based care. This assistant will offer a wide range of natural language summarization and conversational abilities, risk dashboards, and decision support for clinical supervisors and caregivers. By utilizing patient clinical data, such as comorbidities, diagnoses, previous hospitalizations, and falls, the enhanced features will automatically identify patients at risk of hospitalization. This will enable healthcare providers to modify schedules and mitigate the risk of hospital care, ultimately reducing adverse events such as falls, emergency room visits, and preventable hospitalizations.
“This funding enables us to embrace technology to improve the care Canadians receive at home — something that benefits all of us. By reducing administrative tasks, care workers will be able to increase their caseloads by 10–15%, allowing them to serve more people in need of home care,” said Naomi Goldapple, Senior Vice President of Data and Intelligence at AlayaCare. “Additionally, the project aims to reduce the waitlist for chronic care patients receiving home care by 10%. These efficiency gains will not only benefit individuals in need of care but also contribute to lessening the burden on the healthcare system and alleviating overcrowding in hospitals.”
DIGITAL’s co-investment in this project is supported through the Technology Commercialization stream within their specialized Horizon AI program: DIGITAL’s national program that seeks to capture Canada’s economic potential for applied AI. With additional program streams focused on emerging market opportunities and talent development, the Technology Commercialization stream co-invests alongside Canadian industry and academia in AI projects that support the resiliency and sustainability of health care systems and advance health care in ways that support healthy living, accessibility and delivering positive outcomes.
“DIGITAL is excited to build upon the over 5 years of investments we’ve made in applied AI with this latest announcement,” said Nadia Shaikh-Naeem, Vice President of Programs at DIGITAL. “Our co-investments alongside innovators like AlayaCare, in collaboration with home care providers like Acclaim and Bien Chez Soi, are how we can continue to build on Canada’s reputation as a global center for AI R&D while focusing on advancing global commercial pathways for Canadian companies. This latest announcement with AlayaCare is an example of how Canada can increase equitable access and better health outcomes for Canadians through AI adoption.”
AlayaCare’s collaboration with Acclaim Health, Bien Chez Soi, and Polytechnique Montréal will play a crucial role in the development of these enhancements to AC Cloud. The project will also result in the creation of peer-reviewed novel approaches, such as fine-tuned LLMs for preventing hospitalization in home care. The intellectual property (IP) generated through this collaboration will be accessible to subscribers of the AC Cloud platform, including Acclaim and Bien Chez Soi. Furthermore, AlayaCare will make de-identified datasets available to industry and academia, fostering further innovation and benefiting the ecosystem.
With these advancements, AlayaCare aims to further penetrate the $2 billion global home health care market, establishing a significant market share for a Canadian company.
For more information, please contact:
AlayaCare Press Contact:
Steph Davidson
[email protected]
About AlayaCare
AlayaCare is an end-to-end software platform for public, private, non-profit, and community home-based care organizations that manages the entire client lifecycle, including needs assessments, care plans, scheduling, visit and route optimization, and visit verification. Founded in 2014 and now with over 500 employees, AlayaCare combines traditional in-home and virtual care solutions that enable care providers to lower the cost of care and achieve better outcomes for their clients. For more information, visit: AlayaCare.com
About DIGITAL
DIGITAL, Canada’s Global Innovation Cluster for digital technologies, grows Canadian businesses through the development, adoption and deployment of Canadian-made technologies and by working with industry to develop a digitally skilled workforce to positively impact lives across our country.
We bring together businesses, academia, community and government agencies to solve some of industry and society’s biggest challenges — better and faster than any single organization can do on its own. Through a powerful model that combines cross-sector collaboration, Canadian IP creation and results-based co-investment, we unlock the potential of Canadian industry to lead and succeed in the digital world.
Ahead of the curve starts here.
For more information, visit digitalsupercluster.ca
DIGITAL Press Contact:
Sydney Redpath
[email protected]
Featured image: Credit: AlayaCare
