Aged care sceptical about IT

A third of Australian aged care providers are Information Technology (IT) ‘savvy’ but significant numbers remain cautious or sceptical about technology, according to a recently released survey.

The National Aged Care IT survey drew on the perceptions of 107 aged care organisations who had taken part in the 2006 ‘IT Readiness’ survey.

The majority of participants were classified into three groups: IT savvy (33.4%); IT cautious (16.9%); and IT sceptics (12.3%). The remaining 37% of respondents were unable to be categorised.

Providers deemed IT savvy tended to be early adopters of technology and were more likely to have a client focus on technology.

IT cautious providers had a greater interest in business related IT applications than client focused technologies.

Many of them had had a negative experience with technology in the past, and tended to be concerned with the return on investment for IT products.

IT sceptics were unlikely to engage IT for client related functions, limiting their use to basic Internet functions and internal communications.

As well as gauging IT readiness, the survey sought to gain a better understanding of the purchasing intentions of aged care providers.

Almost two thirds of providers (60.9%) indicated that their highest priority in IT procurement was electronic medication management, with document management (58.7%) coming in as a surprise second.

When asked what topics they would most like to see on an online educational portal, participants gave preference to evidence based ‘best practice’ care guidelines (86.9%), cost management and control (74.7%) and ACFI Management (69.2%).

The survey was conducted by Aged Care Direct with the endorsement of Aged Care Association Australia (ACAA) and Aged and Community Services Australia (ACSA).