Humana Healthy Horizons and HealthStream Partner to Strengthen Indiana’s Home Care Workforce
Humana Healthy Horizons in Indiana, Humana’s Medicaid managed care plan, is expanding its efforts to strengthen the state’s home-based healthcare workforce through a collaboration with HealthStream, a healthcare technology company focused on workforce solutions.
The initiative is designed to address two interconnected challenges affecting home care across Indiana: a persistent shortage of qualified caregivers and high workforce turnover. By expanding access to training, recruitment resources and workforce technology, the collaboration aims to help home care providers build more stable teams while improving continuity of care for Hoosiers who depend on services delivered in their homes.
As part of the initiative, Humana is sponsoring 1,000 Home Health Aide (HHA) scholarships. The scholarships are intended to remove some of the financial barriers that can prevent individuals from entering the caregiving profession and are particularly focused on expanding the caregiver pipeline in rural and underserved communities.
The program was developed with HealthStream and is being delivered through its Career Network, including myCNAjobs.com. By connecting individuals interested in caregiving careers with education and employment opportunities, the initiative seeks to create a larger and more sustainable pool of qualified home care workers.
Addressing Indiana’s Home Care Workforce Challenge
Home-based care has become increasingly important as more older adults and people with disabilities seek to receive healthcare and supportive services in familiar surroundings.
However, expanding access to home care requires a sufficient number of trained professionals. When caregivers are difficult to recruit or frequently leave their positions, providers may struggle to maintain consistent staffing and patients may experience disruptions in their care.
The home care industry faces significant workforce turnover. According to information provided as part of the initiative, home care providers experience an average annual turnover rate of approximately 77%.
High turnover can have consequences beyond recruitment costs. Frequent changes in caregivers can make it more difficult for patients to establish trusting relationships with their care teams. For older adults and individuals who require regular assistance with daily activities, consistency can be an important part of maintaining comfort and quality of life.
Workforce instability can also place additional pressure on the caregivers who remain with an organization, potentially contributing to burnout and further turnover.
Humana and HealthStream are therefore approaching the workforce challenge from multiple directions, combining education and recruitment with tools designed to improve employee engagement and retention.
1,000 Scholarships Aim to Expand the Caregiver Pipeline
A central component of the collaboration is Humana’s sponsorship of 1,000 Home Health Aide scholarships.
The scholarships are intended to make it easier for individuals to pursue careers in home-based care by reducing financial barriers associated with training.
Training is particularly important in home care because aides need the knowledge and skills required to safely support patients in their homes. Formal education can provide new workers with greater confidence as they enter the profession while helping providers build a more qualified workforce.
The initiative also places emphasis on rural and underserved communities.
These areas can face additional healthcare workforce challenges because providers may have difficulty attracting and retaining workers across geographically dispersed populations.
By expanding training opportunities in communities where caregiver shortages are particularly acute, the program has the potential to support both workforce development and healthcare access.
Anna Dunn, Medicaid Plan President of Humana Healthy Horizons in Indiana, said expanding access to training is one of the most direct ways to grow and stabilize the caregiving workforce.
The collaboration, she said, is designed to make it easier for people to enter the profession while helping providers develop stronger teams and address gaps in home-based services.
Training Can Improve Workforce Retention
Recruiting more caregivers is only one part of the solution.
If new employees leave shortly after joining a provider, organizations must continuously recruit and train additional workers. This can create a cycle of turnover that makes it difficult to establish a stable workforce.
Training can help interrupt that cycle.
Research cited in connection with the initiative indicates that trained home care aides can be more than twice as likely to remain employed after three months and 64% more likely to remain employed after six months compared with workers who did not receive comparable training.
These findings suggest that workforce development can have benefits beyond preparing employees for their responsibilities.
When caregivers receive appropriate education and support, they may feel better equipped to perform their jobs and more confident in their ability to manage the demands of home care.
For employers, better preparation can potentially translate into stronger retention, improved workforce stability and reduced recruitment pressure.
HealthStream Brings Technology to Workforce Management
The partnership also extends beyond scholarships.
HealthStream is providing technology and workforce resources designed to help home care organizations recruit, engage and retain employees.
One component is access to a statewide caregiver network through HealthStream’s Career Network and myCNAjobs.com.
A larger recruitment network can give providers access to more potential candidates while giving job seekers a centralized platform through which they can explore opportunities in the home care sector.
Expanding the number of people entering the profession is especially important as demand for home-based services continues to grow.
Predictive Analytics Can Help Identify At-Risk Workers
Another component of the collaboration involves HealthStream’s CoachUp Care™ application.
The platform uses workforce engagement technology and predictive analytics to help providers identify employees who may be at risk of leaving.
Early identification can give employers an opportunity to intervene before a caregiver exits the organization.
For example, providers may be able to identify patterns associated with disengagement and respond through additional support, communication, education or other retention strategies.
This represents a shift from simply responding to turnover after it happens toward using data to identify potential workforce challenges earlier.
In a sector where turnover is consistently high, this type of proactive approach can be valuable.
Even small improvements in retention can reduce the number of vacancies providers need to fill and help maintain continuity for patients.
Early Results Show Progress
The collaboration has already produced encouraging early results.
According to Humana, initial results from its implementation of CoachUp Care show that:
- 81% of participating providers achieved higher-than-average caregiver retention
- Providers that improved retention recorded an average 43% increase in retention
- 86% workforce engagement was reported, demonstrating strong caregiver participation and demand for connection and support
These results suggest that technology-supported workforce management can play an important role alongside traditional recruitment and training.
The findings are particularly relevant given the scale of workforce turnover in home care.
Improving retention can help providers build more experienced teams and reduce the operational disruption associated with frequent employee departures.
Workforce Stability Can Improve Care Continuity
The benefits of workforce stability extend beyond providers.
Older adults receiving home-based care often develop relationships with their caregivers. A familiar caregiver can become an important source of support and consistency.
Frequent staff changes can disrupt those relationships and require patients and families to repeatedly adapt to new caregivers.
A more stable workforce can help promote continuity.
For Medicaid members who depend on home-based services, continuity can be particularly important because these services may support daily activities, independence and the ability to remain safely in the community.
By supporting providers in recruiting and retaining caregivers, Humana and HealthStream aim to strengthen the infrastructure that makes home-based care possible.
A Multi-Year Workforce Initiative
The current scholarship initiative builds on a broader effort that began in 2024 to improve workforce stability and continuity of care across Indiana’s home care network.
The initiative was originally developed with MissionCare Collective, which was acquired by HealthStream in December 2025.
The acquisition brought the workforce resources and technology associated with MissionCare Collective into HealthStream’s broader healthcare workforce platform.
For Humana, continuing the initiative through HealthStream provides an opportunity to combine established workforce strategies with additional technology and recruitment capabilities.
The longer-term objective is to create a more sustainable workforce model rather than addressing individual staffing shortages as they arise.
Supporting Rural and Underserved Communities
Rural and underserved areas remain an important focus of the initiative.
Healthcare workforce shortages can be particularly challenging in communities where fewer providers and workers are available.
Home care can help patients remain in their communities rather than relying solely on institutional or facility-based services. However, that model depends on caregivers being available where and when they are needed.
Scholarship programs can help reduce the financial barriers associated with entering the profession, while recruitment platforms can connect trained workers with providers that need them.
Technology can further support organizations by helping them understand workforce trends and identify opportunities to improve retention.
Together, these approaches can create a stronger foundation for home-based care in communities that may otherwise have difficulty attracting healthcare workers.
Building a More Resilient Home Care System
The collaboration between Humana Healthy Horizons and HealthStream reflects a broader shift in how healthcare organizations are approaching workforce development.
Rather than treating recruitment, training and retention as separate challenges, organizations are increasingly looking at them as interconnected components of workforce strategy.
A person considering a career in home care needs access to affordable education and a clear path into employment.
Once hired, that caregiver needs appropriate training, support and opportunities to remain engaged.
Providers, meanwhile, need tools that allow them to recruit efficiently, understand workforce risks and respond to potential turnover before it occurs.
The Humana and HealthStream initiative brings these elements together through scholarships, recruitment resources, workforce technology and education.
Technology and Human Support Working Together
Technology alone cannot solve the caregiver shortage.
Home care is fundamentally a people-centered service, and caregivers need meaningful support, appropriate training and strong relationships with their employers and patients.
However, technology can help providers make better workforce decisions.
Predictive analytics can identify potential retention challenges. Recruitment platforms can expand access to candidates. Digital education can help workers develop skills. Engagement tools can create additional channels for communication and support.
When these technologies are combined with human leadership and effective workforce practices, they can help providers create more sustainable employment environments.
The demand for home-based healthcare is expected to remain significant as healthcare systems continue looking for ways to support older adults and other populations outside traditional institutional settings.
That makes the availability of qualified caregivers increasingly important.
Humana Healthy Horizons in Indiana’s decision to sponsor 1,000 HHA scholarships represents an investment in expanding the workforce pipeline, while HealthStream’s technology and recruitment capabilities provide additional tools for providers seeking to retain that workforce.
The early results from the CoachUp Care implementation indicate that these efforts can have a measurable impact on workforce stability.
With 81% of participating providers achieving above-average caregiver retention and an average 43% increase among providers that improved, the initiative provides an early indication that combining workforce engagement technology with training and recruitment can make a meaningful difference.
Ultimately, strengthening Indiana’s home care workforce is about more than filling vacant positions. It is about ensuring that Medicaid members and other individuals who depend on home-based services can receive reliable, consistent and high-quality support.
By reducing barriers to training, expanding recruitment opportunities, using data to identify workforce risks and supporting caregiver engagement, Humana and HealthStream are working toward a more resilient home care ecosystem.
For Indiana’s healthcare providers, the initiative could help create stronger teams. For caregivers, it can provide clearer pathways into a growing profession. And for patients and families, a more stable workforce can mean greater continuity and confidence in the care they receive at home.
The partnership demonstrates how investment in healthcare workers can ultimately become an investment in patient care—helping communities expand access to home-based services while supporting the caregivers who make those services possible.
Source link: https://ir.healthstream.com/
