AAA May-June 2022 Cover Story

MAY- JUN 22

australianageingagenda.com.au

Going digital – ITAC showcases technology developments, research & workforce requirements

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FEATURE

SPONSORED FEATURE ITAC is back in 2022 –12 and 13 July at Rosehill Gardens Racecourse in Sydney

Digitising aged care This year’s ITAC conference aims to help providers incorporate digital care systems into their operations.

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hen the Innovation Technology Across Care (ITAC) delegates turn up to the Rosehill Gardens Racecourse in Sydney in July, many of them won’t have seen one another in the flesh for two years.

This will be ITAC’s first in-person event since the Brisbane conference in March 2020 – just before COVID hit.

Finally, after a few false starts due to pandemicrelated postponements, the Aged Care Industry Information Technology Council has locked in 12 and 13 July for ITAC 2022. No doubt COVID, and the role technology has played in delivering care during lockdown, will be on everyone’s lips.

That, and how best the aged care sector can fully embrace information and communication technologies into the future. And the future, as they say, is now.

Speaking to Australian Ageing Agenda, ACIITC chair Dr George Margelis says there are a host of issues for delegates to chew on.

The main one being how the sector responds to the royal commission’s recommendation that all aged care providers must adopt a digital care system that includes electronic medication management and is interoperable with My Health Record.

In the final report, Royal Commissioner Lynelle Briggs highlighted major problems and limitations with current technology infrastructure and architecture in aged care, including variable 30 | MAY – JUNE 2022

Dr George Margelis

Professor Gregory Alexander

use of digital record keeping for clinical and administrative information management.

“There are a lot of digital clinical systems out there designed to help care but the reality is those designed for aged care still don’t cover the full complexity of the data they need to capture,” says Margelis. “Making sure we have systems relevant to aged care and add value to aged care are critical issues here.”

Professor Gregory Alexander, from the Columbia School of Nursing in New York, tells AAA that – when it comes to ICT – one of the biggest problems facing the aged sector is poor communication across providers.

“There are major challenges with designing and implementing health information technology that supports the exchange of data,” says Alexander.

“Health data sharing among providers is critical

SPONSORED FEATURE for continuity of care, care coordination, and appropriate and timely services for older adults.”

Improved health data sharing enables consistent information to be shared among providers and augments decisions about patient care, says Alexander. “Health systems and patients that are not capable of sharing data oftentimes experience delayed care, more adverse events, and increased numbers of preventable hospital readmissions.”

However, Alexander is keen to point out that there needs to be some level of accountability for how and when data is shared. “In the United States, policy makers have been working on federal legislation trying to define information blocking rules for healthcare organisations, including what penalties should exist for organisations that do not support information exchange.”

The theme of ITAC 2022 is Technology for a Sustainable Care Sector. The event aims to emphasise to providers and other industry stakeholders how technology can support service delivery.

When it comes to utilising digital care systems, the aged care sector badly lags behind other health services, says Margelis. “We’re moving away from a world where aged care is all about social support and physical support to a day where aged care is highly integrated with healthcare, which is already highly digitally enabled. Aged care is just an outlier in that space.”

Many providers lack the core infrastructure, says Margelis. “Basic issues like cyber security still aren’t high on the agenda of an aged care provider.”

Alexander agrees: “Most residential aged care facilities have no health information technology department or experienced chief information officers or staff onsite to guide the organisation through the life cycle of an IT system,” he says.

“Most facilities use contract personnel to manage their IT systems, who have a different level of commitment than someone who works fulltime in a setting.”

Negative perceptions of the sector act as a barrier to hiring top level IT staff, says Alexander.

“Recruitment and retention of qualified trained staff is difficult due to the stigma and low pay found in many [aged care] settings.”

An obstacle to digitisation for many providers is a lack of cash. As has recently been revealed, 60 per cent of Australia’s aged care providers operate at a loss.

ITAC Awards

Always a conference highlight, the awards recognise innovative solutions and developments that put a focus on improving the lives of senior Australians.

As a sign of the times, there’s an extra award this year: the Surviving COVID-19 award.

And like previous years, providers and software companies across the disability, residential aged care, home and community care and retirement living sectors have made submissions to the following categories: • Excellence in software application implementation • Excellence in collaboration • Excellence in app development • Excellence in business intelligence development • Excellence in cyber security development • Rising Star Award.

The awards be announced during the ITAC Awards Dinner on Tuesday evening, 12 July.

“Making sure we have systems relevant to aged care and add value are critical issues here.”

“Technology needs to be enabled in such a way that it becomes part of their standard operational costs, not a large capital cost upfront,” says Margelis. “It’s about integrating the solutions into their day-to-day processes and procedures and being able to capture – not just the cost of the use of the technologies – but the savings associated with it.”

The two-day ITAC conference brings together experts, vendors and regulators across the fields of aged care, medication management, assistive technologies and information systems.

These subjects – plus many others – will be discussed from a practical perspective allowing providers to learn how to incorporate digital care systems into their operations.

“ITAC is an opportunity for providers to see what technologies are available. They have the opportunity to speak to their peers who are also in the same transition process. We have various degrees of digitisation in the industry, so they’ll be able to hear from those who are using digital technologies now,” Margelis tells AAA. “It will enable providers to discuss with the vendors and the regulators what their current challenges and issues are because they’ll all be in the same room at the same time.”

Many aged care providers don’t, as yet, have a roadmap for what technologies and systems they need in order to digitise, says Margelis.

“But being in the same room as vendors, other providers, regulators, policymakers and researchers enables them to work on developing that dynamic roadmap,” he says.

“ITAC is an event designed to bring the whole community together to talk about the challenges ahead and work on how they can find solutions together.” n Register for ITAC 2022 and the awards dinner at itacconference.com.au australianageingagenda.com.au

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