For aged care providers weighing up their next workforce education investment, a practical starting point is the technology their staff already use every day.
Digital documentation, monitoring systems and telehealth can support better care. But their value depends on workers understanding the information available, knowing what to do with it and having the confidence to act.
The National Environmental Scan from Holmesglen’s Home and Community Care Centre of Excellence points directly at the clear gap between innovation and its translation into workforce capability within the aged care sector. Research, technology, service delivery and training are moving forward, but they are not working together in lock step.
For aged care leaders hoping to keep pace with technology that can streamline and improve the care experience, their first priority should be identifying where this disconnect is occurring within their own organisation.
Build skills that transfer
Dr Gabrielle Koutoukidis, Holmesglen’s Dean of Faculty, Health Science, Community and Social Studies, says the sheer number of technologies in the care environment makes training workers on every individual product impractical, however awareness and foundations can be taught.
“You can give them guidelines and teach them principles,” she says.
The Centre’s approach will emphasise adaptability, supported by opportunities to practise in physical and virtual home environments, including its planned flagship learning environment, the Smart Home Living Lab.
For monitoring technologies, this means understanding how sensors work, what information they generate and how that information relates to care, rather than focusing exclusively on a particular brand.
The scan found that remote monitoring delivers greater value when connected to care processes, alerts and defined responses. Collecting information without the means to interpret and act on it has limited measurable impact for providers funding the technological advances or the people receiving care.
Providers can start by analysing a familiar care process from beginning to end. What systems does a worker use? Can they interpret the information? Do they know when and how to escalate a concern? Does the receiving team have a clear response process?
These questions can help differentiate a training need from a disconnected system or where responsibility is unclear. The scan also identified a mismatch: training tends to focus on individual tasks, while care processes are delivered across multiple systems. Practising a complete scenario, from receiving an alert to coordinating a response, could help identify and address that gap.
Invest in the people supervising care
Koutoukidis says digital capability, care coordination and complex care management should be priorities for those who are supporting frontline workers.
“There needs to be an investment in middle leadership skills,” she says, highlighting the challenge of supervising staff delivering care remotely or in the community, juggling the complexities of technology troubleshooting and people management.
This widens the investment scope beyond upskilling frontline staff to use these systems day to day. Supervisors need to help workers apply learning, coordinate responses and manage these new skills across a range of care settings.
The environmental scan doesn’t quantify financial return from specific training investments. However, the findings reinforce that education should be funded as part of a package alongside the systems and working arrangements that allow staff to apply it.
Co-design workshops to shape education offering to the sector
Holmesglen’s Home and Community Care Centre of Excellence is planning co-design workshops to hear directly from consumers, families, carers and providers about the skills they need in the people who deliver their care.
“We actually need to hear from people on the ground,” Koutoukidis says.
At the time of interview, dates and participation arrangements were still being developed. Online and in-person workshops are under consideration, alongside a national roadshow. Interested providers can register their interest though the Centre’s website.
The co-design workshops will help inform the Centre’s education offerings and approach to collaborating with the sector. A virtual learning space is planned to extend access nationally, while its suburban Smart Home Living Lab, near the Moorabbin campus, is intended to welcome students and the community from January 2028, says Koutoukidis.
Koutoukidis reiterates that person-centred and relationship-based care must stay at the core of why technology is being introduced to the care environment. The immediate task for leaders is to understand where workers need help connecting technology with care decisions. That gives education investment a defined purpose, and gives providers something meaningful to measure.
