As we enter a new era for the Aged Care industry, one where the demand for excellence in functionality, design and care will be higher than ever before, and accountability will be required at levels not yet seen, it is imperative that the focus be not only on how Aged Care is regulated and monitored but how it is provided in the first place.
A model of heath care that puts the consumer – both the patient and their families – at the centre of how care is provided.
- Reassurance will be needed more than ever.
- Reassurance that workers are supported in a way that allows them to out-perform any Aged Care worker that has gone before them. Reassurance that the welfare of our elderly will be respected and monitored in a way that patients and families have never experienced.
This is why Sleeptite exists.
Sleeptite’s one goal is to develop new, non-invasive technologies with integrated sensor capabilities to provide Real-Time Biometric Analysis of data through a complementary interface, and thereby give Australia’s aging population the best care that money can buy. Proximity sensors exist, many of you will use them every day through one or several of your smart devices. What doesn’t exist are proximity sensors that are accurate enough, reliable enough and advanced enough to be used as medical technology, technology that can read heart rate, blood pressure and breathing as accurately – if not more so – than the monitoring devices that exist today.
Flexible proximity sensors exist in their infancy, they were designed here in Melbourne, by a research team at RMIT. What doesn’t exist are flexible proximity sensors that can be embedded in materials that sit external to the human body and can still provide medical grade monitoring of a person’s vital signs. The solution is real, the path is already laid out before us, what doesn’t exist is the machinery to develop, and ultimately mass produce the technology.
This is where we can make a stand. This is where Australian can, and we say will, lead the way in developing world-first technology. Technology that is researched in Australia, designed in Australia and where its prototypes are manufactured in Australia.
What is needed is for someone to stand up and say “Australia will ensure the welfare of its elderly like no one else” and in doing so become world leaders when it comes to increasing the quality of health care provided to its elderly through technology. Technology that not only supports the valuable care workers but enables them to provide greater care than they believe is possible, and at a cost that is more affordable than the technological assistance currently on offer.
