Oklahoma Metropolis-based Accentra Healthcare opened in 2017 and has seen comparatively speedy progress. In accordance with CEO Trent Smith, the corporate, which affords companies akin to registered nurse-led house well being care and hospice care, went from zero to almost 750 sufferers in its service strains throughout the state of Oklahoma in simply seven years.

However progress brings its personal challenges. Within the house care trade, Accentra, like many different businesses, was combating excessive worker turnover. Whereas the trade’s typical turnover price is round 30%, Accentra was experiencing charges approaching 35%. Smith knew he needed to take motion.

Smith mentioned growing documentation necessities and stricter laws had been among the many greatest limitations to retaining employees.

“Medicare continues so as to add documentation necessities and laws whereas lowering reimbursements,” Smith advised House Well being Care Information. “Fewer nurses are prepared to work in house well being care and employees turnover is so excessive due to the burden of sustaining data and documentation.”

So Smith created Apricot.

Apricot is a digital private assistant and author for house well being nurses. The app shortens the everyday two-hour documentation course of to about quarter-hour, giving caregivers extra time to deal with sufferers, the corporate says.

“We’re harnessing the facility of synthetic intelligence primarily based on giant language fashions and large knowledge facilities,” Smith mentioned. “It will possibly do extra, quicker, and higher than conventional expertise. It’s not transcription, dictation, or speech-to-text; it’s a nurse telling the pc what was wanted to deal with the affected person and letting the AI ​​do the documentation.”

Smith mentioned the nurses who select to work in house well being achieve this as a result of they’re obsessed with affected person care. They typically burn out after a day of going from affected person to affected person after which processing hours of documentation. Apricot expertise helps alleviate that burnout, too, by eradicating impersonal technological limitations and bringing intimacy again into affected person care.

“Simply having to look down whereas documenting takes away the intimacy of caring for the affected person. The supplier can’t look the affected person within the eye and make that connection,” Smith mentioned.

Accentra attributes the rise in affected person numbers and caregiver satisfaction to Apricot.

“As a result of the appliance offers a better return on funding, we are able to say sure to decrease income streams, leading to extra individuals getting the care they want,” Smith explains.

Smith advised HHCN that Accentra’s worker turnover has dropped from 35% to zero by way of the primary seven months of 2024. However like all house care businesses, the corporate faces extra challenges.

“Medicare Benefit is consuming away at our trade,” Smith mentioned. “It comes with quite a lot of extra points, akin to a 40% to 50% discount in income per go to in comparison with conventional Medicare. It additionally comes with a further administrative burden, as a result of it’s a must to get pre-authorization to do a sure variety of house visits.”

Regardless of these challenges, Smith stays centered on future progress.

“We now have an aggressively getting older inhabitants and no one needs to go to the hospital or nursing house,” he mentioned. “They might relatively obtain medical care at house. Proper now, there are extra individuals [needing care] than businesses, and we’re excited to increase our footprint, develop and unfold our tradition and ambition all through the communities we serve.”

He indicated that the corporate is at present exploring a number of enlargement choices and is in search of a partnership with one other strategic participant that aligns with Accentra's mission, imaginative and prescient and values.

“We’re too small to be large, however too large to be small,” Smith mentioned. “We have to be larger so we are able to take the following step in delivering extra care to extra sufferers.”