In 2022, the Support at Home Program was launched with much fanfare. It promised a new approach to care in the home, including a commitment to fund Digital Technologies in the home as separate Service Type. That is, the acquisition and installation of, and subscription to, digitally enabled technologies that use software for the purpose of supporting consumer independence, care, monitoring, functioning and risk management or social support. And the education, assistance and support to make it work. Bravo! See the extract.Then, it disappeared.
Faced with a backlash from operators for whom management fees were sacrosanct, did the Department or Government (or both) quietly trade away the future for more of the same?
There were some mentions in the back end of explanatory papers that the department still believes in digital technology in the home and that there would be funding available via research grants and the like. Not exactly a signal to the technology sector to invest in confidence.
That leaves it to market forces to drive adoption. What we know of course is that the sector adoption of digital home technologies is glacial. A home care sector focussed on care labour hours and care planning is keen to adopt technology that drives labour efficiency, but slow to adopt new technologies and digital ways of improving the life of the care recipient in the home, unless there are compelling reasons to do so.