WellSky, Ava Launch Solution to Combat Staffing Crisis for Homecare Agencies

OVERLAND PARK, Kansas & NEW YORK—WellSky, a health and community care technology company, announced the release of WellSky TeamEngage powered by Ava, a new innovation for home-based care providers aimed at increasing employee retention, reliability and recruitment through gamification. The solution incentivizes and rewards caregivers for completing targeted activities and achieving performance goals, fostering a culture of appreciation while improving staff retention rates and agency differentiation.

WellSky TeamEngage comes when home-based care providers face a growing workforce shortage crisis. The turnover rate for homecare providers is 77%, challenging agencies to meet an increasing demand for services with a shrinking supply of caregivers. This can result in higher rates of referral and client case rejection. With WellSky TeamEngage, agencies can implement customizable, data-driven incentives to attract and retain talent at scale, while shifting focus toward other operational priorities and providing exceptional care.

Using WellSky and Ava’s integrated technology, Griswold—one of the country’s largest homecare franchises with more than 170 locations in 32 states and over 9,000 caregivers—reduced the turnover rate in its eight company-owned offices by 13% in just seven months and helped a large majority of caregivers reach key goals, such as clocking in and out on time and meeting minimum weekly hour requirements. The company has since rolled out the technology to its franchise network and expects significant adoption.

“We have seen tremendous benefit from using WellSky TeamEngage powered by Ava, both in the retainment of talented staff members and in the differentiation of our agency,” said Caitlin Griffith, director of people & culture at Griswold. “Our organization believes that care professionals are the foundation of our success, with innovation being key to improving the lives of those we serve. We have been pleased with the adoption and staff satisfaction with the solution, and we look forward to further benefiting from a comprehensive set of insights to guide our approach to workforce engagement strategies.”

Ava acts as an AI-powered chief engagement officer for health care providers, with its average customer improving employee retention rates by 45% in six months. Ava improves employee engagement so health care providers and administrators can redirect attention to scaling their businesses. Now in partnership with WellSky, the organizations will extend this technology to providers across the U.S., with the Ava platform integrated within WellSky electronic health records (EHR) technologies and the WellSky TeamInsights solution. TeamEngage will provide a comprehensive flow of data between systems and a seamless end-user experience.

“Ava works to remove the burden of administrative work and reconnect caregivers and homecare administrators with why they chose a health care career in the first place,” said Victor Hunt, chief executive officer and co-founder of Ava. “We are excited to lend Ava’s Enterprise AI technologies to TeamEngage and, in doing so, tackle one of the greatest crises facing health care.”

By leveraging data directly from WellSky Personal Care, WellSky TeamEngage incorporates specific caregiver actions, such as taking open shifts and performing timely clock-ins, into the agency’s defined incentive model, which stores all actions and awards points that caregivers can redeem for monetary or other agency-defined rewards. These day-to-day behaviors combined with pulse survey results, gamified referrals, and other engagement metrics are all tracked within WellSky TeamInsights for Personal Care, where powerful algorithms help predict caregiver turnover risk to proactively guide retention strategies.

“The staffing crisis facing our clients and the industry at large is a major concern, both for people seeking care in the home and for agencies trying to meet that need,” said Wes Little, chief analytics officer at WellSky. “We are thrilled to bring WellSky TeamEngage to our clients to not only provide them a tool to incentivize and reward caregivers, but to also gain the insights needed to run their operations at scale in today’s challenging environment.”

To learn more about how WellSky is powering agency staff retention and engagement, visit wellsky.com.