Patrick Phillips: How AI Is Disrupting Our Industry, and What We Can Do About It
An Interview With Cynthia Corsetti
Lean in to change- AI is a powerful tool if you use it properly — embrace it. You need to make certain your company uses AI to add value by automating routine tasks, enhancing predictive analytics, and informing opportunities to create new products or services.
Artificial Intelligence is no longer the future; it is the present. It’s reshaping landscapes, altering industries, and transforming the way we live and work. With its rapid advancement, AI is causing disruption — for better or worse — in every field imaginable. While it promises efficiency and growth, it also brings challenges and uncertainties that professionals and businesses must navigate. What can one do to pivot if AI is disrupting their industry? As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Patrick Philips VP of Data, Honor Technology.
Patrick is the VP of Data at Honor, where he is responsible for data science, data platform engineering and data analytics. He was previously the Sr. Director of Data Science & Engineering at Kinsa where he built and lead a diverse team of data scientists, epidemiologists, data engineers and analysts to track and curb the spread of contagious diseases. He got his BA in International Politics and Economics from Middlebury College.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive into our discussion our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?
I always enjoyed studying mathematics, and when I was in college, data science wasn’t really a thing yet. Now, I get to work with data and use it to build products and services that improve the lives of older adults and their families. This is a great fit for my family’s mission as well — my wife is a geriatrician. We are fortunate to share a common interest in making a positive difference in the lives of older adults and their families while helping create meaningful careers.
We see where technology can play a role in helping people age better and provide better work experience. I am able to help people make informed decisions about healthy aging and aging in place
Passionate about using data to build products that solve real problems.
driven by our mission of tracking and curbing the spread of contagious disease
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
For the first time in world history, there are more people over the age of 65 than under the age of five. The fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population is people 85 and older and the number of centenarians, people aged 100 and older, is projected to more than quadruple from 2024 to 2054. .
At Honor, our mission is to expand the world’s capacity to care. We are addressing the challenges of caring for the aging population and empowering our franchise owners and Honor Care Network partners to provide care in a more scalable way.
I think my favorite thing that I get to do is work on matching clients with Care Professionals. We use data to strive for a great match. If the client likes music and dogs, we will try to match them with a Care Pro with similar interests.
Our business is very personal. We like to say Honor is where high tech and high touch meet to provide care and support for seniors and their families.
You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
Curiosity — I approach problems with a curiosity to a challenge rather than bringing a preconceived notion and assuming I know what the answer is. At Honor, we are bringing scalability to home care, and it’s something that’s never been done before, so maintaining curiosity is easy.
Work ethic — Willingness to put in long hours and see projects through from start to finish. I have a genuine interest in what I’m working on, so that makes my work easier.
Dependability — I try to be the type of person that I would like to interact with. When I see a problem, I work to fix it. I also hold myself to the same standards that I expect of my team members.
Let’s now move to the main point of our discussion about AI. Can you explain how AI is disrupting your industry? Is this disruption hurting or helping your bottom line?
AI is drastically disrupting healthcare, but there are three areas where AI is disrupting and revolutionizing the home healthcare industry: improving personalization at scale, supporting task prioritization and enabling detection and prevention.
The timing for this disruption couldn’t be better for the home healthcare industry, as it’s an area that is particularly ripe for transformation and offers a compelling solution to streamline back-end tasks and enhance the patient-provider relationship. Honor’s platform uses AI to match the right care professionals with seniors for in-home care, so AI’s disruption is helping our bottom line.
Which specific AI technology has had the most significant impact on your industry?
We have been using AI on the staffing front to help us find the best match between Care Pros and clients at given points in the aging and care journey. The right match is a 30 to 40 dimensional challenge and humans struggle with doing that at scale, but computers are great at it.
LLMs are also important for us. Our care plans are still reviewed and evaluated by people, but LLMs help us parse through text, needs and care plans at scale.
Can you share a pivotal moment when you recognized the profound impact AI would have on your sector?
The home care industry is growing rapidly, but it is highly fragmented. It primarily consists of small companies and independent contractors, due to the demand for care coupled with the low cost of entry into the industry.
At Honor, we are different from the rest of the industry. We have the largest home care network with our Home Instead brand, and have more than 1,200 offices across all 50 states and 13 countries. We are taking what was already a big business and creating a platform where high tech is meeting high touch to provide clients and their families with a world-class care experience. We are also using AI to enhance the work experience for our workforce of nearly 100,000 Care Professionals by providing real-time updates to care plans.
Having AI tools in our toolbox has changed the game and enables us to provide more care, and more personalized care, to more people.
How are you preparing your workforce for the integration of AI, and what skills do you believe will be most valuable in an AI-enhanced future?
At Honor, we’re already using AI to get ahead of problems that could happen by using machine learning to get more insight into what’s happening in the home. Something we’re working on and preparing our technology team for is eliminating redundancies through AI, such as automating care notes and summarizing phone calls.
Soft skills like creativity, problem-solving, perseverance, being bold and questioning the status quo will be most valuable in an AI-enhanced future. Technologists can use these skills to adapt to the ever-changing needs of a growing business, such as acclimating to the use of gen AI in workflows, and help move an organization forward by connecting the dots between business goals and technical work.
What are the biggest challenges in upskilling your workforce for an AI-centric future?
Technology right now is like walking on the moon — every step we make with technology is opening up time for people to be more innovative and creative. That said, the biggest challenges in upskilling our technologists for an AI-centric future are teaching them how new tech amplifies their work, how to use new technology tools since every step we make with technology is giving people more time to be ingenious in their work, and how to responsibly use new algorithms.
What ethical considerations does AI introduce into your industry, and how are you tackling these concerns?
Integrating AI into the development of care plans for older adults offers a promising avenue for enhancing both the efficiency and effectiveness of care delivery. Maintaining the human aspect of elder care is essential, as it fundamentally relies on empathy, understanding, and personal interaction. We must maintain a delicate balance.
What are your “Five Things You Need To Do, If AI Is Disrupting Your Industry”?
1 . Lean in to change- AI is a powerful tool if you use it properly — embrace it. You need to make certain your company uses AI to add value by automating routine tasks, enhancing predictive analytics, and informing opportunities to create new products or services.
2 . Pick the right problems to solve. Understand the problems AI is best suited to solve. For example, for us, it might be summarizing thousands of messages to identify common themes. For example for us, it might be staffing changes or modifications to care plans.
3 . Make sure you have the right data — avoid garbage in garbage out. Your models are only as good as the data you feed into them.
4 . AI is a dynamic space, so stay curious about the latest trends and what is on the horizon. It seems like every week there are new, foundational changes taking place in AI — it’s moving fast, and it isn’t going to slow down.
5 . Be proactive about bias. Work to identify and mitigate it.
What are the most common misconceptions about AI within your industry, and how do you address them?
People may think AI will remove the human element to caregiving. To the contrary. AI has the potential to significantly enhance the home care experience by:
Providing personalized care plans: AI can analyze vast amounts of data about an individual’s chronic conditions, care needs, preferences and daily activities to create highly personalized care plans. By leveraging machine learning algorithms, AI can help us predict the specific needs of older adults and adjust their care plans in real time, ensuring that they receive the most appropriate care based on their current condition.
Delivering predictive analytics: AI can review text from shift notes and detect changes in an individual’s health status. This data can be used to predict potential health issues before they become serious, allowing for preventative measures to be taken and thereby reducing the chances for emergency interventions and hospitalizations.
Training and Support for Caregivers: AI can offer personalized insights, notes, and support for Care Pros based on the specific needs of the individuals they are caring for. By analyzing data on interactions with the client, AI can provide recommendations for improving care.
By integrating AI into the caregiving process, the industry can move towards a more personalized, efficient, and proactive approach to care. This not only enhances the quality of life for older adults but also supports Care Pros in delivering more effective care.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life?
I have three kids under the age of six, and I read to them often. One simple lesson that I want them to always remember, and it applies to all of us, is that, “if you can be anything in life, BE KIND.”
At Honor, we are working with families at challenging times — caregiving is hard. Kindness and empathy go a long way in helping families navigate the eldercare ecosystem.
Off-topic, but I’m curious. As someone steering the ship, what thoughts or concerns often keep you awake at night? How do those thoughts influence your daily decision-making process?
My three kids keep me up at night more than work does. 😀
That said, at Honor we are taking on a mission that is hard — changing the way society cares for older adults. We can’t let such a big challenge overwhelm us — it is our responsibility to approach this challenge with a thoughtful approach.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
I’m actually already part of a movement that I really enjoy. I hope all of us are lucky enough to live long, healthy lives. In my work at Honor we have the privilege of helping people maintain their independence, age in place, and age with dignity and grace.
Thank you for the time you spent sharing these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!
About the Interviewer: Cynthia Corsetti is an esteemed executive coach with over two decades in corporate leadership and 11 years in executive coaching. Author of the upcoming book, “Dark Drivers,” she guides high-performing professionals and Fortune 500 firms to recognize and manage underlying influences affecting their leadership. Beyond individual coaching, Cynthia offers a 6-month executive transition program and partners with organizations to nurture the next wave of leadership excellence.
