Earlier this year, Bruce Akins’ mom got her first smartphone, after more than a decade of life with a flip phone. Like any good son, Akins knew the 87-year-old would need some one-on-one assistance in learning to embrace the tech tool, but he also knew that he couldn’t fly from his home state of California to Arizona, where his mom lives, just for a smartphone tutorial.

But within hours, Akins had secured the second-best solution: a “Papa Pal,” a local caregiver, who arrived at his mom’s door to help her get accustomed to her new device. Papa is a service that helps folks like Akins provide their loved ones with the support and companionship they need but might not have access to, all through the touch of an app. Akins, the director of benefits and compensation for California-based SCAN Health Plan, helped add Papa to his employer’s suite of benefits in recent months, making this kind of support available to the company's more than 1,300 employees.