Last week James Wiltshire and I were invited by the leadership of the big Not for Profit operator Warrigal, spread across the Illawarra and ACT, to strategically discuss the future of retirement villages. We emphasized that their future will require tech in the home and Hospital In The Home.
They acknowledged these had not been on their radar – but now are.
Our hypothesis, as discussed before, is that Government and residents themselves will increasingly want to stay in their homes and refuse to transition into residential aged care.
Warrigal admitted they already have this situation.
For horizontal villa style villages, this is a major challenge. How do you execute your Duty of Care for an ailing resident located at the outer edge of the village? How do you know what is going on with their health, their care plans, their overall welfare?
The Village Manager can’t be visiting every day and do they have the skills to identify dangerous situations?
The only answer is technology in the home – wearables, detectors, communication. The major suppliers of this gear are telling us they are receiving increasing enquiry from village operators, especially now that home tech is going to be partly funded under the coming Support at Home program (replacing Home Care Packages).
Hospital In The Home will be big too: monitoring and treating at hospital level in the home. It is happening now.
For all this IoT (Internet of Things) to work however the village needs reliable internet, and this is not as common as you would think. In fact Warrigal acknowledged that several of its villages do not have reliable 4G or 5G.
Fortunately the land lease operators also recognise this challenge and have built the expertise of Prospecta Utilities to install private 5G networks in their communities.
Now Prospecta is working with new and old villages. They have a solution that doesn’t require trenching, just a shoebox sized 5G piece of gear on a light post. (See their pic). The cost is a surprise too; it is low.
We think this is going to be so important, we asked Prospecta CEO Mark Langdon to speak at the LEADERS SUMMIT.
Now is the time to start planning for Home Tech. We believe the Duty of Care will be big within three years. Warrigal can see it unfolding now.
Register here for the LEADERS SUMMIT 2025 in Sydney next month.
