Workforce shortages have been the pinnacle lament in Australia’s aged care sector for decades. The common catchcries are familiar: we need more workers, we need to attract younger people into the sector, and we need to prepare for an ageing population that wants to stay at home.
These challenges remain. But another is emerging, one that is often hidden beneath optimism about the benefits of technology and innovation.
As care increasingly shifts into people’s homes, technology is reshaping almost every aspect of service delivery. Artificial intelligence, digital care planning, remote monitoring and smart home technologies all promise greater efficiency and improved outcomes. But technology itself isn’t the disruption.
The speed at which the sector is changing, and an organisation’s ability to bring its people along for the ride, is the real disruption.
New technology demands new capabilities
Every new technology brings new workflows, new compliance considerations, new risks and, most importantly, new capabilities that workers must take onboard if those technologies are to improve care rather than complicate it.
Fleur Goulding, Strategic Lead at Holmesglen Institute’s Home and Community Care Centre of Excellence, acknowledges that issues within the Aged Care sector cannot be viewed in isolation.
“We know about workforce shortages and the issues around attraction, but technology deepens the skills gap, because of that rapid advancement.”
The situation is no longer whether organisations can recruit enough people. It’s whether they can continuously develop the capabilities those people will need as care evolves. That means learning can no longer be treated as an occasional exercise.
Formal learning meets continuous learning
Educating staff during onboarding and meeting ongoing compliance and audit requirements already places significant demands on organisations. Adding emerging technologies to that equation only deepens the challenge, as innovation rarely follows the predictable timelines of audit cycles or recruitment drives.
This is particularly relevant as a growing number of technology providers enter the aged care market, promising greater productivity, reduced administrative burden and improved compliance. Those benefits may well be realised, but only if organisations are equally prepared to build the capability needed to use them effectively.
Keep people at the heart of innovation
Despite her remit, Goulding is clear that technology should never become an end in itself. Its purpose is to create more time for what matters most.
“The true north for us is that technology augments, not replaces the human relationship that sits at the heart of quality care. This is not tech for tech’s sake.”
Goulding says reducing documentation, streamlining administrative processes and supporting compliance should free care workers to spend more time doing the work that technology cannot replace – building trust, exercising judgement and delivering compassionate, person-centred care.
Innovation will always outpace education
The pace of technological change demands a rethink of how the sector develops its workforce. Traditional qualification frameworks remain essential, but they were never designed to evolve at the same speed as innovation.
“We need to get better at building capability in a more responsive way. Waiting for the national mechanisms to develop accredited curriculum isn’t going to entirely keep pace. Introducing more flexibility will be vital, including options for shorter-cycle programs and delivery of short skills development in areas of high demand and need.”
Goulding is pragmatic about the future of the sector. Technology will continue to evolve, consumer expectations will continue to shift and care models will keep adapting. Organisational readiness is never not a moving target.
No organisation adapts alone
Goulding sees the role of the Centre of Excellence as a way to connect and accelerate the work already happening across the sector.
The organisations that adapt most successfully are unlikely to be those with the largest workforce or the newest technology. They will be those that learn fastest, test ideas collaboratively and build capability as deliberately as they build infrastructure.
“The first priority on our roadmap to achieve is enduring partnerships, because we know throughout our history as a public, vocational provider that we can’t do it on our own.”
Providers, educators, researchers, technology developers and consumers each hold part of that solution.
