Digital transformation for the aged care sector

[Michael Lye – Deputy Secretary of Ageing and Aged Care – speaking to camera]

Hello. I’m Michael Lye, Deputy Secretary of Ageing and Aged Care at the Department of Health. At Health we are passionate about the work we do in aged care and are deeply interested in creating a system that supports the wellbeing and quality of life of older people in our community.

Following the findings of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, the Department of Health initiated a significant social policy reform agenda. The Royal Commission provided a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to review inadequacies in the system and to deliver sustainable improvements that preserve the dignity of life for our citizens at every stage of their aged care journey.

Hearing the evidence of senior Australians and their families has been critically important. We are making changes to aged care to deliver respect, care, and safety for every senior Australian, and we have a 5-year $18.3 billion reform package to help make that happen.

This includes introducing new local personalised assistance to help senior Australians navigate the aged care system, growing a skilled workforce to deliver quality aged care services, expanding homecare support to better enable independent living, improving the quality and safety of residential aged care, and much more.

Much of our change agenda is focused on the design of services and the delivery of better policy but, as we know, so little happens in modern life without enabling technologies, and aged care reform is no exception.

Our aged care agenda is underpinned by a corresponding digital transformation agenda, which includes introducing a new model where clients and providers are digitally connected. Creating an ecosystem that is consolidated, sustainable, and modern. Ensuring the points of connection between our clients, providers, and software industry and government are simplified, digitised, and automated. And creating a better-connected aged care sector.

We know that this is an ambitious agenda and Health is committed to driving aged care digital transformation. But we can’t do this alone. We know we need to work with the sector to realise the transformation. As such, I would like to start the conversation by introducing our planned public engagement activities. To tell you more about our digital transformation intent, I’ll hand you over to Fay Flevaras.

[Fay Flevaras – First Assistant Secretary of Digital Transformation and Delivery Division – speaking to camera]

Good morning. I’m Fay Flevaras, First Assistant Secretary for the Digital Transformation and Delivery from the Department of Health.

As outlined by Michael, the case for the digital transformation is clear from the Royal Commission. In order for us to deliver on these ambitious outcomes for our customers (that is, ageing Australians and those that support them), we need to consolidate, standardise, and modernise our aged care systems.

We are targeting customer improvements that enable customers and providers to digitally enable and connect together, ultimately making the linkages between Government and provider much easier for customers to achieve the outcomes they want.

When talking about digital transformation, this is not just about tech. It is about how people, process, and technology evolve to modernise the sector. The agenda is ambitious, and we are making close connections with our sector and other Government providers to ensure that cross-Government work agendas and their impacts to the sector are clear. This is a significant piece of work, and in order for Health to be successful, we need to partner with you in the industry.

To ensure this happens we are prioritising the conversation. Gathering insights and understanding touchpoints with the sector. So we are introducing the aged care tech talk plus live webinars, such as this, where we can keep you informed on current status, upcoming activities, recent decisions, and our future plans. We can answer your questions and respond to feedback on where we are heading, and we can co-design that path together.

We look forward to seeing you there and, in the meantime, we will keep this site active and you can check back here for your current sources of information and an email link to contact us if you have any questions that you would like us to cover.

Thank you.