Hammond Innovations to drive rapid aged care transformation

A new initiative aimed at rapidly transforming care for older Australians, particularly in dementia, palliative, and complex care, has been unveiled by one of the country’s leading aged care providers.

Hammond Innovations, announced last week by HammondCare CEO Andrew Thorburn at the Ageing Australia National Conference, seeks to bridge the gap between ideas and practical, implementable solutions for the aged care sector.

Mr Thorburn said the initiative will “take burning questions and bright ideas, then test, refine and apply them to create insights that transform care.” It aims to use research, creative design, cutting-edge technologies, and cross-sector partnerships, with an emphasis on fast implementation.

Leading the venture is Dr Anna Barker, who has worked for 20 years in healthcare, aged care, and research innovation.

As executive general manager of Hammond Innovations, Dr Barker will integrate the resources of the Dementia Centre, Palliative Centre, and Centre for Positive Ageing – along with the provider’s clinical trials unit.

“What we’re looking to do in Hammond Innovations is keep our really strong history and track record of conducting world-class research in dementia, palliative, and complex care, but really move a little bit more quickly in response to what the sector needs,” Dr Barker said.

“The aged and health sectors face growing pressures including workforce shortages, preventable harms, rising costs, administrative burden and slow translation of evidence into practice.

“We want to respond to this with solutions through a provider-led innovation model – not just research that is too slow or pilots that are too narrow – that is technology inspired and makes use of innovation pathways to move from problem to product with speed, agility and scale.”

At the heart of the initiative is the IDEA Hub, which stands for Insight, Design, Evidence, and Action.

Described as an engine room, the IDEA Hub will identify urgent problems, test solutions, and scale what works through collaborations with technology, universities, and philanthropic partners.

The initiative has three key priorities directly impacting the aged care workforce.

Firstly, it will focus on improving the environments of older people, including developing safer, more personalised, and digitally enabled homes, residential care settings, and hospitals.

Secondly, it aims to support care practitioners with practical digital tools, AI assistants, and streamlined workflows. This is designed to free up staff, allowing for more time to be present with older people in their care.

“We know that for people providing care on the frontline [...] almost 35 to 40 per cent of their time is spent on low value administrative tasks, rather than actually holding hands and providing face-to-face relational care to older people,” Dr Barker told Aged Care Insite.

One example of a way to address this, she said, would be an AI tool that generates an audio care summary a care worker can listen to in the car while driving to see a new client. It would provide a summary of the individual, who they are and their unique preferences, as well as the care insights and information needed to enable someone to deliver the best care possible.

Simple technology such as this, that is readily available and easily implemented, could be a game changer for maintaining consistency of care and helping to build relational quality of care between a care worker that may not be familiar with the older person they're visiting, Dr Barker explained.

The third priority involves developing new ways to assist older people and their support networks, including families, with market-ready digital solutions such as smart lamps, ambient listening devices, radar sensors, digital pill boxes, AI companions, and virtual reality therapy.

The time is now

While the aged care sector may be currently under immense pressure as it readies itself for the transition to the new Aged Care Act, Dr Barker said there’s no time like the present to bring together all of the pockets of outstanding care across the country.

“We’ve seen [...] this wonderful groundswell around collective impact and collaboration,” she said.

“In some ways the challenges and opportunities of reform have brought people together. There is shared feelings around the challenges, the problems and the opportunities, and people want to work together to really deliver better care.

“I think the culture and the appetite is right.”

The initiative will co-design solutions with older people, researchers, technologists, families and an array of experts through both virtual and physical think tanks designed to be able to rapidly identify pressing challenges.

“We've got wonderful knowledge, wisdom, experience, insights, bright ideas out there all over the place in the sector so it's how can we really bring these together and create greater value and impact through you know adopting a new process and way in which we transform care.”