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A third of Australian aged care providers are ‘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 which took part in the 2006 IT Readiness survey.
The majority of participants were classified into three groups: IT savvy (33.4 per cent); IT cautious (16.9 per cent); and IT sceptics (12.3 per cent).
The remaining 37 per cent 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 per cent) indicated that their highest priority in IT procurement was electronic medication management, with document management (58.7 per cent) 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 per cent), cost management and control (74.7 per cent) and ACFI Management (69.2 per cent).
The survey was conducted by Aged Care Direct with the endorsement of Aged Care Association Australia (ACAA) and Aged and Community Services Australia (ACSA).
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