By: Dave Hodges, Principal, Government and Aged Care, and Rob Mackay, National Healthcare Lead
Aged Care in Australia is at a pivotal inflection point. Pressure on the system is being applied from all sides; a shifting demographic and ageing population is increasing demand on aged care services, while significant workforce pressures have resulted in a number of critical front-line workers deciding to leave the sector.
Meanwhile, providers are wrestling with spiralling costs and financial sustainability, in the backdrop of major sector reform with the Aged Care Act. A move to a rights-based approach empowers older Australians and puts them at the heart of the system, but the transition will be complex, with many hurdles to navigate.
The challenges are significant, but these are the opportunities to transform the sector that must be grabbed with both hands. It’s within this landscape that the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) offers great rewards; however, many providers are unsure of where to start. We see three key areas where AI can be strategically applied to not only enhance the quality of care, but also improve outcomes for aged care consumers, empower staff, and move the industry towards a new era of consumer-centred care, whilst maintaining rigorous quality, standards and all-important human-in-the-loop control.
Key AI use cases in the Aged Care industry
AI’s strength lies in its ability to process vast amounts of data at speed and scale. This makes it excel at predictive analytics, such as anticipating health risks like falls or illnesses before they occur, or automating repetitive and data-heavy tasks, such as paperwork, reporting and rostering, freeing up people to focus on the patient-centred aspects of care.
Back-office automation:
AI-powered systems can automate administrative tasks, such as invoice processing, rostering, and compliance reporting. This significantly reduces the manual workload for staff, minimises human error, and ensures timely and accurate data management.
For example, an AI system can automatically reconcile invoices with purchase orders, flagging discrepancies for human review, thus freeing up valuable finance team time. Equally, for many organisations, there’s an obvious win around utilising AI for enterprise search, enabling staff to efficiently find the right information they need to complete their task, wherever that data may be stored.
Freeing up time for front-line staff:
AI can assist front-line staff by handling routine, data-intensive tasks. For instance, automation can reduce clinical time associated with care minutes reporting, or can be used in a Co-pilot way to generate shift notes or develop care management plans, which are then reviewed and curated by care managers.
Equally, there are many approaches being explored to help with fall prevention: sensor-based monitoring, digital twins and predictive analytics based on historical data of resident movements, medication schedules, and environmental factors. In this way, AI can identify residents at high risk of falls, allowing staff to implement proactive interventions. This frees up clinical staff from constant manual monitoring, allowing them to dedicate more quality time to direct patient care.
Improving Consumer Experience:
How can AI improve the consumer experience – giving the consumer what they need, when they need it? There are many potential applications for how AI can personalise and enhance the consumer journey. One use case is an AI-driven “digital companion”. This could be a voice-activated assistant that helps residents with daily tasks, such as setting medication reminders, playing music, or connecting with family members via video call.
Some providers are also looking at how AI can more efficiently match both residents and staff with those who share common interests or backgrounds. This not only improves a resident’s sense of independence and well-being but also provides a more engaging and personalised living experience. Conversational AI is also being deployed to improve the customer experience in care navigation, with care professionals able to augment AI-driven conversations at key points.
How to get your organisation on the fast-track to AI adoption
Adopting an AI point solution without holistically considering all the pre-requisites for success, and the flow-on impacts, can lead to a range of unintended consequences. These can include elevating your risk profile, creating distractions or additional work for your people and in some cases, adverse consumer impacts and compliance breaches.
But it doesn’t have to be this way – and the reality is that successful AI adoption will be one of the drivers that aged care providers can use to improve staff and consumer experience, realise process and reporting efficiencies, and uncover new and previously untapped opportunities to improve organisational performance.
In our experience, it’s important to select the right technology, or the ‘right AI’ for the chosen use case, rather than opting for the biggest weapon in the arsenal for every task. There’s great potential in the agentic AI space, but as our teammate Samuel Irvine Casey, Principal AI/ML Consultant at Mantel, says:
”If your process or workflow can be solved with deterministic rules, use that. If it can be solved with a simple LLM call, do that. If it requires more complicated reasoning but is still a fixed-step process, then maybe an LLM workflow with tool access is enough. If it is a truly complicated multi-step process with an uncertain decision path, that requires a lot of assumed information and autonomous decision making, then yes, an agent might be the right approach.
Samuel Irvine Casey | MantelPrincipal Consultant - AI & ML
One of the most important steps in preparing any organisation, regardless of industry, for AI adoption, is a thorough understanding of not only your organisational layers, but also the processes for which you are adopting AI. AI readiness assessments, such as the one Mantel offers, driven by trusted experts in AI, are a great way to understand which aspects of your organisation are ready.
In summary: the path forward
Let’s recap. The aged care sector is at a crucial turning point, grappling with an ageing population, workforce shortages and financial sustainability, while navigating significant government reforms. These challenges are substantial, but they also present unique opportunities for transformation. By strategically adopting not only AI, but the right type of AI, providers can enhance quality of care, improve outcomes for residents, empower staff, and usher in a new era of consumer-centred care, all while maintaining high standards and human oversight.
Embracing AI readiness and selecting appropriate solutions will be key drivers for success in this evolving landscape. In our next piece, we’ll explore practical ways for implementing AI within aged care, including three key principles underpinning successful implementation. We’ll also explore how to make organisation-wide changes stick, and how to empower people to embrace a new way of working with AI. Stay tuned!
