Every year, ITAC gives us a moment to step back from the day-to-day and take the pulse of aged care technology in Australia. This year, attending with the Eevi team, I came away with something I hadn’t quite expected: genuine optimism.
There was an energy at ITAC 2026 that felt different. A sense of renewal. The sector has been through significant change over recent years – reform, pressure, scrutiny – and yet the mood in that Exhibitors Hall was forward-looking. People were energised. Conversations were substantive. And the technology on display reflected a sector that is genuinely evolving.
An Exhibitors Hall Worth Exploring
The Exhibitors Hall was a highlight in itself. What struck me was the mix – established vendors who know this space deeply, sitting alongside newer entrants bringing fresh thinking and technologies we haven’t seen before in aged care. That combination is healthy. It signals a maturing market where innovation is no longer an afterthought.
Artificial intelligence was, unsurprisingly, the dominant conversation thread among the newer vendors. Two stood out for me. Heidi – a global leader in AI scribe technology – has now dedicated a team specifically to aged care in Australia, with Jefferson Spratt leading that product focus locally. For an industry where clinical documentation burden is significant, the potential here is genuinely exciting, and it’s a space we’re watching closely at Eevi. Sugar CRM was another name that generated real interest, particularly around how CRM capability can be better leveraged in care settings. Fivegoodfriends again demonstrated why they are THE force to be reckoned with in care planning software, with an impressive team and even more impressive advances in automation and use of AI to improve resident outcomes (but I am biased).
The Operators: Real People, Real Challenges
As always, the conversations that stayed with me longest were with the operators. ITAC brings together an extraordinary cross-section of the sector, and this year was no different.
It was great to connect with experienced operators like Moran Healthcare, who are thinking carefully about where cloud-based systems are headed and what that means for their infrastructure decisions in the next two years. Regional operators like Huon Regional Care and Lions Haven reminded me why purpose-built technology matters so much – the challenges facing a smaller regional facility are distinct, and they deserve solutions designed around their reality, not adapted from a hospital context.
We also had great conversations with great Queensland-based operators including Sundale and Bernie Brae, along with a number of organisations we were meeting for the first time – including St Basils, and Clayton Church Homes. Each came to the conversation with different needs, different estate configurations, and different visions for where technology fits in their care model. That diversity is one of the things I find most energising about this work.
What the Vendor Floor Tells Us
Beyond AI, the Exhibitors Hall reflected some clear technology themes. RTLS – real-time location systems – continues to evolve rapidly, with vendors like Rauland and JCT demonstrating meaningfully different approaches to the same problem. Camera-based fall detection solutions like NOBI are pushing into the market with interesting results, though questions around alert fatigue and carer workflow remain live. LoRA connectivity is also being explored in some interesting ways for village and campus environments.
What’s clear is that the technology landscape is no longer a simple set of choices. Operators are weighing up integration complexity, managed service requirements, cyber security risk, and total cost of ownership in ways that are far more sophisticated than they were even a few years ago. The questions we fielded at our stand reflected that maturity.
Looking Ahead
I left ITAC 2026 with a full follow-up list and a full diary – both good problems to have. More than that, I left with a renewed sense of the momentum in this sector.
The operators we spoke with are ambitious for their residents. The technology being developed is increasingly purpose-built for aged care rather than borrowed from other healthcare settings. And the conversations – between vendors, between operators, between consultants – are the kinds that move things forward.
For the team at Eevi, it was a reminder of why we built what we built, and who we built it for. We’re looking forward to continuing the conversations that started at ITAC – and to what the next twelve months bring.