AI chatbot shows caregiver the way

Informal caregivers regularly get lost in the maze of healthcare. The free AI chatbot Cari from informal care platform Zorggenoot promises to take informal caregivers by the hand with accurate, practical information. "With Cari, we want to make reliable information easily accessible at any time of the day," says founder Jeroen Vermeulen.

In total, the Netherlands has about 5.5 million informal caregivers. With the growing pressure on formal care, they are becoming increasingly important. Yet informal caregivers run into many problems. Especially the combination of work and informal care is tough. Forty percent of informal caregivers have physical complaints. They report sick up to eight times more often than other employees. As much as 18 percent of total absenteeism is informal care related. One in ten employees can no longer even combine work and informal care.

Inventing the wheel

Often it is not the informal care itself, but the all the regulation that kills informal caregivers. "Because information is so scattered, they spend hours every week doing that and often have to reinvent the wheel," Vermeulen said. With the interactive, AI-driven questioning tool Cari, Zorggenoot aims to relieve informal caregivers by bringing together in one place all the necessary information around care, housing, financial and legal aspects of care. Vermeulen believes this "will have a major, positive impact on the lives of many informal caregivers." All the more reason to put some questions to Vermeulen.

How does Cari work? Has Zorggenoot developed its own algorithm or is Cari built on software from OpenAI or other major provider?
"Cari works on the basis of existing algorithms as well as in-house development. The AI part is based on OpenAI software, but runs on our own cloud so we don't share anything with third parties. To get better answers, we use multiple agents and LLMs. We also use Retrieval augmented generation (RAG). Cari's answers are based only on its own content and validated third-party content. Therefore, the chatbot does not answer questions that have nothing to do with the topic of informal care."

How many users does Cari have now that the chatbot has been up and running for almost a month?
"Cari now has 230 users. Questions come in mainly about care and support, for example whether there is local informal care support and about types of informal care that are possible. There are also questions about legislation and finances. What financial arrangements can be accessed for loved ones? Where in the municipality can you make your Wmo application? And: what about benefits and debt assistance for loved ones? Remarkably, 39 percent of users get an answer they can go on with after just one question."

Does Cari get 'smarter' the more often the chatbot is used?
"All answers are input for developing and learning from Cari. When questions can be answered even better or questions are asked that the bot does not have an answer to, that is input for us to create new articles so that the bot becomes smarter. We also constantly configure the bot so that the answers are good and as concise as possible. The recent acquisition of the Mantelzorgtest is particularly interesting in this regard. That test helps people find an appropriate offer of help and support and thus provides insight into local information. That's super important. This way we are always looking at where we can improve our offering."

How does Care Partner fund a free service like Cari?
"We see Cari as an important development to keep informal care scalable and qualitative, albeit always with a helpline with real informal care brokers as a back-up. Cari is available for public use on a trial basis until the end of the year. We are thus giving all family caregivers a chance to use it, from which we in turn can learn. For caregivers who come to us through clients such as employers or municipalities, the chatbot behind the login works even better, because the bot then also takes the profile context into account."

Is your message getting through to employers, municipalities and care organizations?
"We are seeing a lot of interest and growing fast. Employers have a direct commercial interest in reducing caregiver absenteeism and retaining caregivers. Municipalities have a legal mandate to support family caregivers. They mostly do not yet do this online. Or the online information point is not 'smart', as a result of which informal caregivers are not yet properly helped. With our platform, helpline and AI chatbot, together with the municipality and welfare organizations, we can work more efficiently with higher satisfaction. This is much needed now that the number of informal caregivers is increasing so much. For care organizations, our chatbot is closely aligned with the adage "first yourself, digitally, at home, with third-party help and only then formal care. Our platform provides a point of support that keeps the informal caregiver afloat and reduces or eliminates the need for formal care. Moreover, caregivers receive fewer questions, freeing up time for other clients."