AI in Everyday Care: Brändi relies on smart support

The Brändi Foundation is committed to the inclusion of people with cognitive or psychological impairments. With the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) in 2024, Brändi has taken a significant step to support professional staff and simplify everyday care. The AI platform assists professionals since December 2024 additionally with documentation and the formulation of entries in client journals, as well as creating texts in Easy-to-read Language. This saves time and ensures that the entries consistently meet Brändi’s high quality standards. The simple and practical application leads to high acceptance of AI and helps reduce apprehension about the technology.

The Challenge in Everyday Care

As a social welfare institution, Brändi focuses on the care and support of people with disabilities at the center of their work and residential everyday life.

In Central Switzerland, more than 1,100 people with disabilities work across 14 different industries. Professionals support and accompany the employees both professionally and personally. In the residential sector, more than 340 living spaces are available. For people who wish to complete vocational training, there is a dedicated vocational school with more than 245 training positions.

For all these areas, work with individuals must be professionally documented, and in particular, the individual care requirements must be recorded. The client journal serves this process-oriented documentation, including progress and evaluation of goals, framework conditions, and agreements. In addition to information about medications, doctor’s appointments, or emails with consent forms, guidance conversations, action plans, or status assessments are primarily recorded in free-text format.

High quality standards apply to the entries: They should be concise, meaningful, process- and resource-oriented. They must always be descriptive and reflect Brändi’s agogical core values. Furthermore, the client journal also serves to substantiate the care requirements to cantonal authorities. The clients’ right to access their own records is guaranteed at all times and is actively supported by Brändi.

Overall, documentation requires both extensive expertise from the caregivers and a significant time investment in maintenance and updates. Only in this way can quality be consistently maintained at a high level.

AI Supports Everyday Care

With the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) through a platform at Brändi, various AI-supported functions were already implemented in 2024. In addition to the internal search for documents and information from Brändi using Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), specific functions for text generation have now been implemented.

Figure 1: Entry point for the AI platform with its various functions

Text generation helps in formulating entries in the client journal or in generating entire texts in Easy-to-Read Language.

The requirements for a correctly formulated entry in the client journal according to Brändi guidelines were implemented in the AI platform and thus serve as a framework for the Large Language Model (LLM) being used. Freely formulated text inputs or individual text artifacts are translated by the LLM into text that meets the requirements for an entry in the client journal. Note-like formulations, grammatically incorrect or incomplete inputs are completed and can be directly incorporated into the client journal.

The use of this function saves time for caregivers, as texts no longer need to be completely formulated by themselves while considering all requirements. At the same time, the AI can ensure consistently high quality of all entries in the client journal, regardless of the effort and experience of the caregiver.

As another application, the principles of “Easy-to-Read Language” were incorporated into the LLM. With this application, texts can be translated into documents that are formulated in Easy-to-Read Language. These could be instruction manuals, process documents in production, or information sheets, for example. This automatic generation also saves time for the care staff.

Artificial Intelligence Adapts to People and Thus Leads to High Acceptance

The implemented solution is simple to use and supports a large proportion of the entire professional staff. It is not a specialized application for a few people, but addresses a process step that is central for almost all professional staff.

The introduction was closely accompanied by voluntary training sessions and webinars. Acceptance has been very good since the launch, and the functionality has already been used several hundred times within a few weeks. The barrier for professional staff is low, and the benefit is directly noticeable. The AI adapts to the people here by speaking their language. In such an integration, AI no longer appears as an abstract concept or distant utopia but as an aid. The simplicity and direct benefit reduce uncertainty or potential concerns among professional staff in connection with the concept of AI. Such an application is an ideal starting point for introducing AI in the company.

High Acceptance Leads to Meaningful Ideas for Further Development

The very good acceptance directly leads to further ideas and suggestions. For example, the following functions are planned:

• The AI application should be directly linked to the client journal, so that texts no longer need to be copied from the output prompt into the client journal.
• The everyday care routine is also characterized by complete reports that must be created for authorities. A further development should also simplify the creation of such reports.

Brändi is convinced that artificial intelligence can be used supportively and meaningfully in the business context. In principle, the question of benefit should always be examined in advance. The experience gained shows that acceptance is very good when the benefit for users becomes immediately visible and tangible.

About Brändi

Brändi promotes the inclusion of people with predominantly cognitive or psychological impairments in work, society, and culture. We offer 1,100 sheltered work and training positions as well as 340 residential places in the Canton of Lucerne.

An employee in the carpentry workshop, source: Stiftung Brändi

With 15 businesses, Brändi is represented at nine locations: Horw, Kriens, Lucerne, Littau, Willisau, Sursee, Hochdorf, and Baldegg. On behalf of the Canton and the Disability Insurance (IV), it offers work, training, and residential places for people with disabilities. At Brändi, primarily people with intellectual or psychological impairments work and live. With over 2,000 employees, Brändi has grown to become one of the largest employers in Central Switzerland. In total, more than 700 professionals are involved in guidance, instruction, and care.