Published on the 08/07/2015 | Written by Beverley Head
Most Western nations are grappling with the challenges of ageing populations and the impost that will have on their economies and healthcare budgets in particular. Can technology help?…
Yes, according to IBM which will this weekend hook up with HealthXL, a health innovations organisation, to host a three day health hackathon in Melbourne in the hope that it will deliver technology rich solutions that can help people grappling with dementia, social isolation and nutrition issues.
Annette Hicks, IBM ANZ Health Industry Lead, said that the event was now sold out with 150 people registered. Unlike many hackathons participants were expected to pay around $40-45 to attend the event, and while there are no cash prizes the most promising solution to emerge from this weekend will be presented at an international health hackathon event scheduled in Germany later this year and also be piloted by IBM in association with the Northern Health hospital network.
Any intellectual property developed at the event remains the property of the team working together at the hackathon which then has the right to manage that as it sees fit should the idea be taken forward into a product or service.
Hicks said that she anticipated a number of mobile apps would emerge from the hackathon, and potentially solutions that would help connect clinicians and consumers.
Multidisciplinary teams composed of programmers and health professionals at the hackathon will have access to IBM’s Bluemix cloud as a development platform.
HealthXL is an organisation funded and supported by a range of organisations operating in the health sector, including IBM, BUPA and ResMed. It acts as a focal point for organisations working in the sector to come together and collaborate on innovative solutions.
According to HealthXL the scale of the ageing problem means that new forms of collaboration between technologists and health care are required to come up with cost effective and scalable solutions.
The issue is already acute in Australia. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics the median age of Australians has risen by four years over the last two decades to 37.3 years.
But the most startling increases are among older Australians. Over the two decades to 2014 the number of people aged 85 and over soared by 153 percent while there was a total population growth of 32 percent over the same period.
Estimates suggest that by 2050 3.5 million Australians will be receiving some form of aged care services, while Government spending on aged care is tipped to rise over the same period from around 0.8 percent of GDP to 1.8 percent.
Applying technology to allow people to age safely while living in their homes, or using technology to deliver more cost effective care are two of the priorities for technology companies focused on this space.
It is an area that will receive additional attention in Australia later this year when the International Association of Homes and Services for the Aged holds its major global conference in Perth in August/September. That will feature a one day event exploring how cutting edge technology is being deployed internationally to support people as they age, and to support the aged care services sector.
