ITAC recognises innovation

There were so many deserving candidates for the excellence in technology award at the ITAC ceremony, that multiple winners took home the prestigious gong.

Handing out the Innovation & Technology Across Care awards at the event on the Gold Coast Tuesday night, Graeme Wickenden – ITAC 2024 award chair – told attendees: “We had such an overwhelming response to that category, that we have actually decided to recognise five winners in that category.”

There were 52 applications in total, said Mr Wickenden. And without further ado, he proceeded – “in no particular order” – to announce the winners. They were:

• New South Wales and south-east Queensland provider Catholic Healthcare – for providing a solution that enables improved remote clinical assessments
• iAgeHealth – for developing a next-generation workforce solution utilising IoT devices 
• Pop-Up Health – for developing a portable tool that provides wound analysis
• Uniting Care – for developing smart glasses with thermal cameras
• Tanunda Lutheran Home – for implementing robotic technology.

Taking to the stage, Tanunda CEO Lee Martin who said: “The biggest issue we have in aged care is workforce. And if we don’t start looking at robotics now, we will miss the boat.”

Mr Martin then paid respects to the Tanunda team for “supporting and developing the use of robotics.”

The second award – excellence in collaboration – went to New South Wales south coast retirement, aged care and home care services provider IRT for developing an innovative solution that provides real-time non-intrusive monitoring of residents.

Accepting the award, executive general manager infrastructure & technology John Vohradsky who gave a shout-out to all the vendors in the room, “because without you guys, there is no collaboration.”

Winning the excellence in business intelligence award – aged care and disability support provider Annecto for developing an interactive and automated KPI key-performance indicator.

Next up, the excellence in digital workforce development award, which was picked up by the Endeavour Foundation, a provider of a work-ready service to people with intellectual disability. Upon accepting the award, a representative said: “Success has 1,000 carers behind it, so I’d like to thank all of them.”

Once the awards were doled out, Mr Wickenden announced to the room of industry executives, academics, IT experts, and clinicians that ITAC had received so many submissions the council had decided to recognise highly commended contenders. Those given a nod:

• St Andrews
• HammondCare
• Baptcare.

The ceremony concluded with the announcement of the latest inductees to the ITAC Hall of Fame: chief information officer Gavin Tomlins and Mr Wickenden himself, who said: “I guess I’m lucky to have worked for organisations that have always supported innovation, technology and to work with colleagues that I do.”

And with that, the 500-or so delegates were left to continue to eat, drink and be (very) merry.

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