SIDNEY -- The cost of health care continues to rise, and home care, while less expensive, can still be costly. Sometimes, the challenge is staffing to provide the care.

Amber Fields with Safe At Home started looking for an option, and turned to a type of artificial intelligence. 

"We went out to Seattle (Washington). We know that there are a lot of people living on farms and older communities that need more care and there's not enough girls (Safe At Home staff) and we wanted to find something that would be cost effective for families. So we got into the technology side of it," Fields said.

The option is through Sensi.AI. Sensi.AI offers a method of tracking behavior so the family and the caretaker can better determine when and what level of care is needed. Fields said the kit comes with a type of router, and devices that can be plugged into common rooms, kitchens, bathrooms and bedrooms. The router transmits 

"It picks up basically key words to help figure out if there are things you need, if you would fall it would be able to detect that. It also would detect if you had a UTI (urinary tract infection) by the time, how many times you go to the bathroom," she said. 

She stresses Sensi is not a 24-hour monitor of all activity within the home.

"It does not listen to you 24 hours a day. But what it does do is provide care 24 hours a day, because we have somebody who will be monitoring this on our side, just knowing these key words are being picked up and maybe something is happening in the house," Fields said.

She added the guy who will be monitoring the program is fluent in English and Spanish.

She said the Sensi program could cost a fraction of professional on-site or facility care.

"So the average daily cost of a person with home care is about $700. We can do something like this in your house for $50 a week. It will provide the same kind of help that you need with caregivers if you want them. If you do not want them, you can still have this service being able to work with other ones or just making sure you have that extra care," Fields said.

She said she is not aware of any similar program in use in Nebraska.

Safe At Home will be offering Sensi.AI at all of their locations across Nebraska. To learn more about the Sensi.AI program, contact Safe At Home at 308-249-0718.