Transforming aged care: Leveraging AI for enhanced resident well-being  

By Andrew Farmer, CEO and Partner

Everyone has heard of Artificial Intelligence (AI), but many people may not understand what it is and 6 months ago, I was among the sceptics.  

It sounds like magic or even scary at times but like most new transformative technologies, AI has found its way into the mainstream of our lives. I am not talking about ChatGPT which seemed to burst on the scene in the last 18 months, I mean predictive text on our phones, SIRI, the Uber apps, and even the maps our Uber drivers use to find us and get us to our destinations. These are all day-to-day uses of AI. 

The revolution is here. Some say AI or machine learning (ML) is so transformative and powerful, it will do to the digital revolution what the steam engine did to the industrial revolution one hundred years ago. It’s that big. 

There are clearly two areas of application for AI as we see it for aged care:

1. Increasing efficiency – what are the repetitive lower value tasks that can be improved by automation but that haven’t been improved because they also require a certain degree of “human like” reasoning. Sometimes this is because the process includes interpretation, synthesis and sometimes it requires problem solving because of missing or confusing information which skilled humans are good at. Can AI or ML replace this entirely? Perhaps not straight away but it can certainly enhance the process and make it more efficient. 

2. Increase insight – this is widely considered the greatest goal. Productivity is great, but the opportunity to learn and predict from our large data repositories of clinical information is seen as the pot of gold by everyone we speak to about AI. The potential use cases we are collecting seem almost endless. Most of these insights will drive better outcomes for resident care, not by recommending care, but by predicting or highlighting areas that should be looked at more closely. 

To be realistic, the technology is still in its early days. Some would argue it’s been around for decades but the applications we are talking about are not completely straight forward. There is no out-of-the-box product that you can plug in and go. Our approach is far more collaborative.  

The aged care industry is already on their AI journey now

We know that in two years, most of the industry will be leveraging AI in some way. We think it is time to start the journey now and find out how this technology will add value.  

We are creating opportunities for providers to begin their AI journey with us by co-funding a research project to help them understand how AI fits into their bigger plans. The process involves a process to structure your data and then apply the AI models to generate outputs that can be validated against your existing processes and knowledge. We do all the heavy lifting for the projects so that you can sit back and steer. 

The world could not be more exciting now and with the change still to come to this industry in the next five years, we are convinced that AI/ML is going to play a huge role in solving some of the problems that would otherwise hamstring this industry’s progress. 

If you want to find out more about how Mirus AI can work for you, please contact us.