Hospice providers, along with the rest of health care, are increasingly relying on technology for clinical and business operations, with artificial intelligence among the most common investments. However, careful implementation is necessary to effectively use these systems.

For a number of years now, providers have leveraged AI to predict when a patient may become eligible for hospice or to determine the best time to begin palliative care. These practices are gradually becoming more widespread, and providers are also exploring new ways to apply AI.

Nationally, hospice providers are leveraging technology to build greater efficiency into their workflows and, in turn, aid with recruitment and retention. Providers have increasingly sought methods for streamlining clinical teams’ administrative tasks, for instance, including time spent on documentation.

“In today’s health care landscape, leveraging artificial intelligence in clinical settings has become a necessity, not just a trend,” Haley Woods, director of product management with Homecare Homebase, told Hospice News. “One of the most compelling advantages of AI integration is that it empowers clinicians to operate at the top of their licensure. AI can provide capabilities that provide clinical decision insights through predictive and prescriptive machine learning modeling, it can summarize large swaths of data through Generative AI summarization, and a lot of opportunity is presenting itself in the agentic AI space.”

Close to 20% of respondents to Hospice News 2025 Outlook survey indicated that they would be investing in AI or predictive analytics systems this year.

One of hospices’ key goals with AI is to increase efficiency. This lean toward efficiency reflects larger trends in the industry as the labor pool dwindles. Without more boots to put on the ground, providers are seeking ways to get more productivity from the ones they already have in place.

Systems like AI can help hospices allocate the appropriate resources for patients’ changing needs as well as reduce redundancies in tasks like clinical documentation. As more technology seeps into the health care world, some hospices are leveraging these systems to improve compliance, standardize processes and anticipate patients’ needs.

“Clinicians are highly trained experts whose time and energy are best spent on patient care and critical clinical decision making,” Brandy Sparkman-Beierle, chief clinical officer for Homecare Homebase, told Hospice News. “However, if you think about a day in the life of a clinician today, their workload is bogged down by administrative tasks and a lot of redundant data entry that doesn’t necessarily require their clinical judgment and skill. That’s probably where AI truly shines, by automating those routine, repetitive tasks. It frees up that clinician to focus on the most important and meaningful aspects of care.”

Another emerging trend is using AI for back office functions like scheduling and resource allocation. Providers are using these systems to analyze patterns in patient needs and staff availability, thereby optimizing schedules for patient visits. The theory is that this will help patients receive the right care at the right time, while reducing the burden on staff.

Hospices are also leveraging AI to detect potential errors in documentation or medication reconciliation to improve compliance and patient safety. In addition, they are using these technologies to assess risks to patients, such as the likelihood of wounds or falls. Some providers also use AI to screen potential candidates for hiring.

The number of potential applications for AI in hospice care is likely to grow as time goes on and these systems become more sophisticated. Nevertheless, providers need to ensure that they are implementing and using these technologies properly.

“While the benefits of integrating AI in a clinical setting are undeniable at this point, there are also critical challenges that health care providers and technology companies have to address to ensure ethical and responsible implementation, and that comes with the balancing act between compliance and innovation,” Woods said. “One of the biggest challenges in health care, especially in specialized areas like we’re in the home health and hospice space, you have to balance that regulatory environment with the need to reduce unnecessary documentation.”

One major consideration for hospices is selecting the right technology partner to help manage their AI systems, according to Woods. This requires careful evaluation.

More health care AI vendors are emerging almost overnight, Woods said.

Providers must also be careful to avoid issues like data bias. This occurs when biases present in the training and fine-tuning data sets of AI adversely affect the system’s behavior.

“An organization’s responsibility doesn’t end with that implementation. You have to be continuously monitoring and auditing the performance of your AI tooling to ensure that it’s meeting both those clinical and ethical standards,” Woods said. “One of the biggest pitfalls in AI development is the risk of data bias, especially when the data comes from a limited or non-representative segment of the population.”

Another key aspect of implementation is gaining staff buy-in on using AI, according to Sparkman-Beierle.

“The real challenge lies in gaining clinician buy-to ensure long term adherence,” Sparkman-Beierle said. “It’s not just about implementing the technology, but it’s more about do the clinicians buy into it and do they adhere to it. Successful integration hinges on involving health care professionals from the very start.”