Podcast | Healthcare (HC)

How Careforth Empowers Family Caregivers in the Home

June 12, 2025

As the U.S. faces an increasing shortage of caregivers, Careforth is showing what’s possible when family caregivers have much-needed support. In this episode, Jon Lange talks with Katie Tardiff, SVP of Clinical Programs and Services at Careforth, about how the company’s structured family caregiving model is helping families care for their loved ones in their homes with personalized care plans and purpose-built technology. Katie shares insights from her clinical work and personal caregiving journey, illustrating how Careforth is transforming both individual lives and the broader home-based care landscape.

Key Takeaways:

With over 53 million caregivers in the U.S., Careforth is addressing a national workforce gap through home-based, family-led care.

Independent analysis showed Careforth reduced falls by 45% and ER visits by 21% vs. control group.

Careforth’s structured family caregiving model enables Medicaid-eligible families to keep loved ones at home with personalized care plans and purpose-built technology.

[00:00:00] Katie Tardiff They were able to determine that individuals in Careforth Structured Family Caregiving Program had 45 percent lower probability of a fall within a year, and a 21 percent lower probability of an emergency room visit. And that’s meaningful to me as, you know, the daughter of somebody whose dad ended up in the ER far too many times. And it’s meaningful to somebody whose mom has fallen multiple times and that next fall might mean a hip fracture. And it’s meaningful in terms of cost savings in the long run.

[00:00:32] Josh Nelson That’s Katie Tardiff, senior vice president of Clinical Programs and Services at Careforth. And I’m Josh Nelson, head of health care at THL. And this is Healthcare in Action. It’s a podcast that explores the latest developments and innovations transforming the U.S. healthcare sector, from cutting-edge technology to thoughtful new approaches to patient care. I’m here with my colleague, Jon Lange, who will lead us in a conversation about family caregiving and how Careforth is addressing the increasing labor shortage, empowering family caregivers and helping meet the increasing unmet need for home-based care in the United States. Jon, take it away.

[00:01:11] Jon Lange Thanks, Josh. With an aging population and ever-growing demand for care, the U.S. healthcare system, and in particular, the caregiver workforce, is already stretched. At the same time, there are tens of millions of people in the U.S. who care for their loved ones every day, and they often lack the resources and support to provide the kind of care they want for their loved ones. That’s where Careforth is making a big impact. For 25 years, Careforth has been dedicated to supporting family caregivers, providing purpose-built teams, technology, and clinical support to help family caregivers navigate what can be a very difficult journey. And in the process of providing personalized support for thousands of families every day, Careforth is empowering the massive and often overlooked workforce of family caregivers in the U.S., which will be increasingly important as the population continues to age and the labor shortage gets increasingly acute. In today’s episode, I’ll speak with Katie Tardiff, senior vice president of clinical programs and services at Careforth. As a clinician and as an executive, Katie has been a real thought leader in developing programs and support systems to help families care for their loved ones. And I was so pleased to talk with Katie about the impact structured family caregiving is already having on families and all the opportunities ahead. So let’s get into it. Katie, thank you so much for joining me today.

[00:02:30] Katie Tardiff Thank you for having me.

[00:02:32] Jon Lange For those who aren’t familiar with Careforth, would you start by just telling us a bit about the company?

[00:02:37] Katie Tardiff Careforth has been around for over 24 years, and we’re an organization solely dedicated to supporting family caregivers with the goal of helping them to keep their loved ones safely at home. So what we do is we wrap supports around that family caregiver and provide them things like education and content and emotional support so that we’re meeting their needs in terms of caring for themselves, as well as helping them to understand how best to care for the person they’re caring for, all in service to helping them keep their loved one at home where their loved ones most likely wants to be.

[00:03:17] Jon Lange And for those who aren’t familiar, can you just talk a bit about structured family caregiving, the model that Careforth really pioneered and how that’s different from some other care models in the home?

[00:03:29] Katie Tardiff Sure. So Structured Family Caregiving is a program that has been around as long as Careforth has, as we pioneered the service in Massachusetts, where we serve individuals who are eligible for Medicaid and their family caregivers. And the whole intention in designing that program was to identify individuals who were eligible to be living in a nursing home or a nursing level of care. And instead of them living in an institutional setting, having a family caregiver receive support so that live-in family caregiver could provide that care and service to that individual with complex needs. And so the support infrastructure that structured family caregiving provides includes a care team, very often a nurse and a care manager who are dedicated to caregiver and the person they’re caring for to be able to provide that support in the home environment. And so home visits and coaching and emotional support happen on a continual basis over the course of our relationship with the family in order to be that care at home.

[00:04:38] Jon Lange What does an engagement with Careforth look like? What does the care team provide to them? How does the care team interact with the family?

[00:04:45] Katie Tardiff I described a care team who’s a team of dedicated professionals who is supporting this family,and we seek to understand the needs of that family. So we start right out with trying to understand what are the caregiver’s needs through, you know, a simple question around tell me your story and tell me what brought you here and how we’re going to engage going forward. And we work with a family to then develop a plan to work toward goals together that are in service to meeting those wants and needs of the individual and their caregiver. And then on an ongoing basis, we will have touch points that might look like virtual meetings or home visits where we’re in the home and sitting across the kitchen table and having a conversation about how things are going. Some common needs that folks have, one, by virtue of a sort of program eligibility requirements is they have need for how do I perform you know daily living activities, so they have functional impairments that qualify them for being able to live in a nursing home. One of the beauties of our program and the amazing work that the care teams do to support families is that they’re really personalizing this based on the care needs of the individual as well as the needs of a caregiver. And things we commonly hear from caregivers as needs for support are you know, how do I best provide the care for the person I care for? How do I navigate the health system including my, you know, Medicaid out, my loved one’s Medicaid eligibility or health insurance benefits and, you know, how do i navigate healthcare appointments and follow-up from doctors visits and discharge from the hospital. And one of the things we work really hard with caregivers to do is to say yes all of those things, we will support you and what do you need from an emotional support perspective. So we offer coaching around how to ask for help from loved ones how to identify a backup caregiver how to access community based resources that can you know provide additional support to the family so that they’re able to continue doing what they’re doing.

[00:06:59] Jon Lange And that’s such an interesting point. And one of the things that I find so compelling about Careforth that you know, I know from, you know, stories in my own family, there are so many people across the U.S. and the world who become caregivers, and it’s really just sort of thrust upon them. They they don’t have experience, they’re not professional caregivers. And they’re really know, building the plane as they’re flying it. And it’s just so great that you’re able to provide those resources. It sounds like even when the caregiver might not know they need them.

[00:07:34] Katie Tardiff Exactly right. And I’ve been in that position myself. I think one of the things I love so much about the organization is that to a person that you meet within Careforth, we bring some personal caregiving experience to the work that we do and the passion for supporting caregivers, along with a professional experience. But I’ve been in this situation. I’m a trained gerontological nurse practitioner. My entire career has been in the healthcare space, and I have still been in that situation where I’m sitting in the parking lot outside of an emergency room and not knowing what to do next or where to go and feeling completely, not only lost but stressed, about how am I going to manage my own life and situation and you know do this caregiving thing which is not on the side it’s all in at that moment too. So you’re exactly right, Jon. It’s something that can happen slowly over time, and that caregiving experience becomes more and more of a presence in your life until a decision is made, and mom moves in or you know you move in with mom or it can be that situation where there’s a crisis point, and all of a sudden you have new caregiving responsibilities. And very often the caregiver is left in this position of what do I do next and who do I call for support, and Careforth offers that line for help.

[00:09:01] Jon Lange Absolutely. And that’s a good segue. So many people in the U.S. have really sometimes harrowing caregiving stories. Do you have any personal stories that brought you to care for that informed how you think about your work?

[00:09:14] Katie Tardiff Yes, absolutely. My calling to Careforth really feels like it started when I started on my career path. I started my career as an NP in the nursing home. So very quickly was oriented toward, you know, how do we best promote quality of life for people who are nearing the ends of their lives? Family caregivers were integral to that. So I was very focused on this face of quality of life and supporting the individual and their caregivers through the end of their lives. And at that same time, my father was starting to show some signs of some different behaviors that were unexpected. And I was in my early 20s, and finishing graduate school and, you know, starting a family. My mother was working full time and my brother was still a teenager. And we were trying to figure out what the heck was going on. And through many doctor’s appointments and getting misdiagnoses and, you know, just fumbling along on our own, we found a neurologist who gave him a diagnosis of frontotemporal dementia at the age of 53. And so we were already on this path of family caregiving, and this just sort of solidified that, you know, we had a definitive path in front of us. And I was very fortunate to have had my nurse practitioner experience in long-term care, and being able to support my family, but it doesn’t take away that, you know, incredible stress that comes with trying to figure out and put the puzzle pieces together on how to keep somebody safely at home and making sure my mom had the right support. And I can’t say we did figure that out. And I wish he would have had access to Careforth services at that time, because I think it would have made a dramatic difference in our ability to help keep him home, as well as our ability to feel, especially my mom feel that support through this process. It happened that my professional career turned more towards management, and I was introduced to Careforth through the team of nurse care managers that I was working with in Boston. And I happened to go out on a visit with a nurse that was on my team, and we bumped into a family where there was another care team in the home. And I learned that it was the Careforth care team. And in learning about the service and watching a daughter care for her mother with advanced dementia in the whole environment, and receiving the care and support of the Careforth team, in addition to a financial stipend, she was able to keep that care at home. And I had this moment of that loved one with somebody that I would have seen in my professional experience, sitting in a nursing home, and being cared for in a nursing home. And here she is at home, being cared her daughter with the support she needs to be able to do that. And I kept very close in contact with the organization and when an opportunity came up to, take a role here, I jumped at it because I really wanted to experience and be part of the work that we do here.

[00:12:38] Jon Lange Yeah, it’s so powerful and having had that personal experience as a caregiver and having that initial moment wondering how you and your mother and others are going to care for your father. What do you take away from that every day at Careforth? What are the key things that you think about day to day that you and you’re team are providing the families that you weren’t able to get when you were a caregiver?

[00:13:04] Katie Tardiff I think in part, it’s that person at the other end of the phone or at the other end, of you know a chat and an app that can helps you know validate what I’m experiencing and help me figure out what’s next, because so often, it feels like caregiving is just an accumulation of micro-decisions. There’s decision making that has to happen all the time, and things are changing in your caregiving situation all the time. And in those moments, in every one of those moments you have to make decisions. And to have somebody that is experienced and has seen a lot of this across their professional experience, and, like, I said, people bring their own personal caregiving experience to the organization. I think that would have been hugely helpful to know I had that person there.

[00:13:59] Jon Lange And I think that’s a really interesting segue into some of the technology that Careforth has built to facilitate collaboration with the right people with the right skills. And so can you talk a bit about that as well?

[00:14:11] Katie Tardiff Sure. Technology is something that enables our support, but humans, you know, really drive the work that we do. I’ll start with the caregiver-facing aspect, and that is our Careforth app. So we have technology that the caregivers in our program are connected into, and that app provides them direct line to their care team. You know, they can send us a chat and say, where, you know, this is going on today, I need help, help me out with this issue. And it’s private, it’s HIPAA compliant, and it’s a connection directly to a care team. We have articles and videos, and all of this content is designed to be able to support the caregiver in answering the questions that they have. And that’s what’s unique about it. It’s really oriented toward the caregiver. And we’ve self-authored a lot of that so that we can guide caregivers based on the things that we’ve learned are important to them, as well as evidence-based clinical content that can help answer questions about a new diagnosis or a change in condition. And then we have our Salesforce platform that is sort of the centralized hub of where all of our care teams do their documentation. And that allows us to ensure we’re aligned with any of our compliance or regulatory requirements and that we have the repository of critical information that allows us to know how best to provide the care.

[00:15:42] Jon Lange And I think each of these technologies is so interesting in what it brings to bear for families. I, you know, reminded of a conversation I had with a friend several years ago who was just beginning to care for his mother. And he said, he wasn’t a doctor, and he was new to all of this. And so he thought the best care he could provide to his mother was that anytime there was a problem, take her to the emergency room. And that, of course, drove his mother crazy. It wasn’t convenient for him, you know, terrible for costs in the healthcare system, and, you know, didn’t result in better outcomes, if anything worse. And so, you, know, I think it’s so powerful. And at the same time, it seems so simple to have a technology that connects a family with someone who knows what to do, who can make an introduction to a physician or a nurse or a pharmacist at the right time, not only is better for the family. Not only is much less annoying for the patient who then doesn’t have to go to the hospital at all, it’s just so much more efficient for the whole healthcare system. So it’s one of those win-wins that I think Careforth just provides every day. It doesn’t make a big deal of it, but it’s so powerful.

[00:16:54] Katie Tardiff Yes, absolutely right. We build relationships because that helps to ensure that that care is going to be a great experience for the caregiver, and that technology is this great facilitator of those connection points and communication.

[00:17:13] Jon Lange Maybe taking a step back, there’s so much talk these days about care in the home, the aging population, you know, the opportunities based on technology and consumer preferences and all of that to allow people to stay in the home longer. Can you talk a bit about that backdrop? What are the trends you’re seeing and how does Careforth fit into those trends?

[00:17:36] Katie Tardiff You can’t look at the news today without hearing about the aging population, any conversation about healthcare. This is really central to the discussion. And what we know is that as people age, they are more likely to need care and support. And we’ve also talked about the priority that people feel about being cared for at home. And so what that drives is a massive workforce shortage as it relates to who is going to care for those individuals as they age, and how do we facilitate this want, this need, this desire to receive that care in the home and family caregivers really are central to solving this crisis. There are 53 million caregivers in the United States. And if you think of the 53 million caregivers and 53 million people that they’re serving, what needs to happen in being able to address the workforce shortage and to ensure that care is happening where people most want it to happen is that we acknowledge the work that family caregivers are doing and to insure that we’re talking about it and we’re providing them the supports that they need to be able to do the important role that they are doing day in and day out. And this is where Careforth services really intersect with this huge need that’s out there in the United States. And so our aim is to reach that ever-increasing number of folks who need service and their family caregivers so we can offer them that care and support.

[00:19:18] Jon Lange One thing I think about a lot is how hard it is to impact healthcare, and of course, we try to do that with all the companies we invest in. But even maybe before you get there, it’s sometimes even hard to measure the impact you’re having. And I think that’s maybe even more true in a distributed home-based model. So how do you think about that? What kind of impact are you trying to drive? And how are you measuring that impact?

[00:19:42] Katie Tardiff I’m really proud of the work that we do around our outcomes and that we are continuously looking for ways to measure the work we do and measure the impact of the work that do. And I think that makes Careforth unique among providers like us in terms of home and community-based services providers and that this has long been part of our core of what we do. And so one really exciting thing that we did was partner with a third party ATI Advisory to validate the findings that we had in terms of our internal measurement. And what they did on our behalf was analyze like population of Medicare beneficiaries based on variables about the population that matched variables about individuals in our population. And they were able to determine that individuals in Careforth Structured Family program had a 45 percent lower probability of a fall within a year, and a 21 percent lower probability of an emergency room visit, and that’s meaningful to me as you know the daughter of somebody whose dad ended up in the ER far too many times, and that wasn’t a great place for him. And it’s meaningful to somebody whose mom has fallen multiple times and that next fall might mean a hip fracture. And so if we can continue to drive through, you know, the amazing work of the care teams and the amazing of the caregivers, that’s meaningful to that family and it’s meaningful in terms of cost savings in the long run.

[00:21:19] Jon Lange It’s so great to hear. And one thing that’s so interesting for me is that I would imagine as a family is considering different care models, different services, or as a state is considering which models to adopt. They may at least initially be thinking, how can care for service make day to day life better? How can they, you know, direct a family help a family understand the things they need to do day to day help with activities of daily living all of that. But the other piece of this is with the right support, Careforth can help the family really reduce negative outcomes, falls, hospital admissions, emergency room visits. And that’s so powerful that it makes sense, of course, but by giving the right supports, you are getting better outcomes for that family, better outcomes from the healthcare system.

[00:22:08] Katie Tardiff Right, exactly right. I’m really proud of the work we do and the focus that we have there.

[00:22:14] Jon Lange Katie, what excites you most about the future? And what does the future look like for Careforth?

[00:22:20] Katie Tardiff As a country, we have so much opportunities we’ve already talked about to better support family caregivers. And what excites me is our opportunity to expand that reach and find new and innovative ways to reach caregivers that are in different caregiving situations. Not all caregiving situation are such where the caregiver is living with the person they care for. And so we have over 20 years of experience supporting family caregivers, I get really excited about how do we expand that to more, and I think the opportunity here is then ensuring that the types of services like Careforth offers are available more broadly so that all caregivers or many more of them who are unsupported today can be supported in the future.

[00:23:09] Jon Lange Katie, thank you so much for joining us today. It’s always a pleasure. I really appreciate it.

[00:23:14] Katie Tardiff Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure. Thank you.

[00:23:18] Jon Lange As we wrap this episode, I’m joined by my colleague, Megan Preiner, head of healthcare Services at THL. Megan, there’s so much talk about the aging population in the U.S. and what it means for the whole healthcare system. Careforth has pioneered such an innovative model to allow family caregivers to care for their loved ones in the home. Can you put that in context for us? How does Careforth fit into the broader landscape for senior care in the U.S.?

[00:23:42] Megan Preiner Jon, you’re exactly right that the aging population in the U.S. is an incredibly important issue we have to address in the coming years. And it’s not only an issue of demand, there’s an increasing labor shortage, which means that as a system, we urgently need to find innovative ways to care for our senior population. Careforth model is one of the best examples I’ve seen of this. There’s a workforce of tens of millions of family caregivers in the U.S., and we need to increasingly leverage that workforce in order to meet the demand. Careforth pioneered a service model and innovative technology to empower these family caregivers. And so in addition to making life better for countless families, the company is also unlocking family caregivers as a way to address the increasing gap between supply and demand as the population ages.

[00:24:24] Jon Lange It’s a great point. And one of the things I find so powerful about Careforth is that it’s addressing this enormous macro problem, but it’s also so deeply personal and gives patients a way to stay in their homes with their families. Katie’s story was just one example of how personal and impactful caregiving can be for families. Can you talk a bit about Careforth’s model and what it means not only for the families, but for other stakeholders as well?

[00:24:49] Megan Yeah, one thing I love about Careforth model is that it’s a rare win-win for the healthcare system. First, it allows patients to be cared for by their family members in their homes. For so many seniors, this can be really meaningful and very impactful to quality of life. In addition, Careforth supports family caregivers so they can get the resources they need to feel confident in caring for their loved ones. And it does all of this at a significantly lower cost versus institutional care, and even versus other home-based care models. At THL, we’re always looking to partner with innovative businesses that do well by doing good. And Careforth is one really good example of a business that’s driving lower cost, better patient and caregiver experience, and better outcomes for patients.

[00:25:30] Jon Lange Megan, it was clear from Katie’s comments that she and the Careforth team really live and breathe their mission. From an investment perspective, how do you think about partnering with mission-driven providers?

[00:25:43] Megan Jon, that definitely came through from your conversation with Katie, and it’s hard not to be passionate about Careforth’s mission. When we partner with providers at THL, it’s really important to us that we partner with companies and management teams that are mission-driven first. That’s one of the things I love about healthcare investing. We can join forces with mission-driven teams to drive best-in-class care to as many patients as possible. That’s at the foundation of our approach to choosing which companies to invest in, and then also how we partner with management teams on a daily basis. At THL, we’ve had a ton of experience over decades helping these companies grow. And when we find a company and a management team with a great mission and care model, it’s really rewarding to partner with those management teams to drive growth so that we can deliver great care to as many patients as possible.

[00:26:27] Jon Lange It’s great to hear. Megan, thanks so much for joining me. I’m really excited about the road ahead for Careforth and the impact it can have on families across the U.S. And I’m looking forward to continuing the conversation with you and with Katie very soon.

[00:26:40] Megan Thanks, Jon. [00:26:42] Josh Nelson Thank you for listening to Healthcare in Action, brought to you by THL. To help Healthcare in Action, reach more listeners like you, either share this episode with a colleague, subscribe to the show, or rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. And for more background on THL’s Healthcare Vertical, visit THL.com/verticals/healthcare.