What we heard from the ITAC 2022 Conference
This year’s ITAC (Information Technology Across Care) 2022 conference took place at Rosehill Racecourse over 12th and 13th July 2022.
Amidst a backdrop of continued workforce challenges, the conference theme of transformational care was discussed across the 2 days. The conference brought together aged care providers, vendors, IT professionals, academics, government representatives and others to learn and share how technology can make a difference for aged care.
Our summary of the key themes we heard across the two days.
The challenge can not be solved in isolation.
Partnering, collaboration were key themes across the presentations and amongst the attendees on the exhibition floor. Vendors spoke about interoperability, data integration and partnering with other suppliers to the sector to help make it easier for the care providers to be able to get a better all round solution.
The deployment of apps and platforms have had various levels of success.
A number of our conversations at the YourLink booth were about the rollout of apps and platforms across their organisation. Attendees spoke about how they were missing the basic digital skills for staff and clients that YourLink is providing. The hope for both vendors and providers was to increase the adoption of these platforms and that digital confidence was a key missing ingredient in some instances that prevented this.
Care is still human.
A common theme throughout the conference is that the individual and their families must also be at the centre of the co-design process and technology rollout. Regardless of the amount of technology deployed within the care sector, we must still remember the human element that is essential to the care sector.
Digital skills for the workforce is now a prerequisite.
With a major focus on the workforce and in particular how the sector will attract and retain staff, a number of the sessions and speakers reflected how this is impacting them. It was reassuring to hear some providers acknowledge that there is a need for a new specialist role to meet consumers' technological access, literacy, and connectivity needs. Something we have raised in our past articles about digital coaches.
The first ITAC 2022 plenary session welcomed The Hon. Victor Dominello MP, Mr George Margelis, Dr Ian Oppermann, and Ms Kathryn Greiner to discuss the current and future opportunities in digital government and Business to Government (B2G) improvements. Photo credit: Richard O'Leary.
ITAC 2022 plenary session two welcomed Anne Livingstone, Louise O'Neill, Patrick Shearman, Lysette Mavridis, and Jennene Buckley to discuss how to achieve a digitally enabled and skilled workforce. Photo credit: Richard O'Leary.
During the panel session, “How to harness technology to support best practices in aged care”, Louise O’Neill - CEO Aged Care Workforce Industry Council shared:
"Digital literacy is in demand, we identified 11 areas of need that make up various models of aged care, including daily physical needs with care needs, social and emotional needs, rehabilitation. Of 18 roles including Registered Nurses (RNs), Personal Care Workers (PCWs) and other support workers 23% require skills related to technology. This is a higher proportion than any other group of skills including clinical skills and basic care skills.”
We left ITAC knowing that there are a number of passionate people who share our dedication to bring digital access to the individuals and workforce supporting them.
Contact Richard Scenna, Director by email richard@yourlink.com.au or phone 0408 742 743.
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