The Future of Caregiving: 5 Predictions for 2025

More integrated, personalized and effective care expected along with recognition of the benefits of having a family caregiver.

Tia Newcomer, CEO of CaringBridge, shares her five predictions for caregiving in 2025.  CaringBridge is a donor-supported nonprofit 501(c)(3) health platform that surrounds family caregivers with support while they care for a loved one on a health journey.

Here are Tina’s 2025 predictions:

1️. The care industry will face a reckoning. We will see a consolidation of caregiving point solutions, with the majority of companies either being acquired or closing operations. This will be driven by the often-ignored fact that family caregivers are overwhelmed, and point solutions are just one more thing to navigate. Combine this with for profit business models relying on employer or payor integrations that are low margin, low engagement, and needing robust patient outcomes data…An industry will be disrupted.

2. Care coordination between family caregivers and healthcare professionals will improve, ensuring more integrated and effective care for those with complex medical needs. An increased urgency is placed on both providers and family caregivers to collaborate to reduce hospital re-admissions as the continued trend of discharging patients sooner and at a higher level of acuity continues to put a greater burden on home care and family caregivers. We will also see AI have a positive impact on giving localized and curated resources to unpaid caregivers when they need it.

3. Evidence of the positive impact of having a family caregiver, specifically lower hospital readmission rates and better health outcomes, will start to become more defined and measurable as deidentified aggregated data is collected, analyzed, and shared between tech point solutions and the healthcare system (i.e., payors and hospitals).

4. Family caregiving will become more personalized and localized – including mental health support, transportation, financial well-being, nutrition, and other social determinants of health (SDoH). For example, imagine the ability to send someone going through colon cancer a grocery bag(s) of specific foods that work well with their treatment regimen.

5. Destigmatization of Caregiving will continue to unfold as more open conversations about caregiving are put into mainstream – like PBS and Bradley Cooper's Caregiving documentary series. Normalizing the experience, including asking for help and support, while openly acknowledging how men and women are impacted, is crucial to reducing stigma and providing better support for caregivers.