Which Assistive Technology Solution Should You Choose?
Updated: Oct 20
With an expanding range of assistive technologies available, choosing the right solution can be challenging. The starting point should not be the technology itself, but understanding where your organisation is today and where it wants to go.
It goes back to two simple principles:
“If you don't know where you are, a map won't help.”
“If you don't know where you are heading, any map will do.”
These principles apply equally to selecting assistive technology.
There are many technologies capable of supporting independence, improving safety and enabling more effective care. However, even the most sophisticated solution delivers limited value if it does not address a clearly understood need or fit the organisation responsible for implementing it.
Technology is a tool. The real challenge is knowing what you want to achieve and how to get there.
An Expanding Assistive Technology Landscape
The range of technologies supporting older people and people living with disabilities continues to expand.
Solutions now include personal emergency alarms, remote monitoring, fall detection, medication management, smart home technologies, digital care platforms, artificial intelligence and robotics.
Many technologies overlap in functionality, and increasingly, suppliers combine several capabilities within integrated platforms.
The 2025 AgeTech Market Map, developed by Keren Etkin of TheGerontechnologist, illustrates this expanding ecosystem. Its eighth edition includes more than 300 AgeTech companies across categories such as independent living, caregiving, robotics and digital health-related services.
The map is a useful resource for understanding the diversity of solutions available, although it is not intended to represent every technology supplier or established care system.
For providers, the growing number of options creates both opportunity and complexity.
More choice does not necessarily make selection easier. Different technologies may address similar needs, but vary significantly in reliability, interoperability, support arrangements, commercial models and suitability for particular care environments.
For a deeper understanding of these considerations, our articles Integrating Home Care Technology: Connecting Systems, People and Care and The Technology: Why the Technology Itself Can Make or Break Smart Care Adoption explore how integration, usability and organisational readiness influence successful technology implementation.
The challenge is not finding technology that can perform a function. It is identifying technology that will deliver sustainable value within the intended care model.
Start With Where You Are
Before exploring potential solutions, providers need an objective understanding of their current position.
This includes the needs of people receiving care, existing service delivery arrangements, technology capabilities and operational constraints.
For example, a provider considering remote monitoring should first understand how it currently identifies changes in a person's wellbeing, how concerns are escalated and where gaps exist between scheduled care visits.
Similarly, a residential aged care provider considering advanced nurse call or sensor technology should examine its existing response processes, staffing arrangements and integration requirements.
Without this understanding, technology selection risks becoming a comparison of product features rather than an assessment of what the organisation actually needs.
This is particularly important when suppliers demonstrate capabilities that appear impressive but may have limited relevance to the provider's operating environment.
A useful starting point is to ask:
What problem are we trying to solve, who experiences it, and what prevents us from addressing it effectively today?
Understand Where You Want to Go
Once the current position is understood, the next step is defining the intended outcome.
For some providers, the priority may be improving safety and response times. Others may want to support greater independence, reduce administrative effort, improve workforce productivity or provide more proactive care.
These objectives can lead to very different technology decisions.
A provider seeking to improve emergency response may require reliable alarm handling and clear escalation arrangements.
A provider seeking to identify gradual changes in wellbeing may need sensor-based monitoring, data interpretation and processes for reviewing emerging concerns.
Both approaches involve monitoring technologies, but their purposes, operating models and measures of success differ considerably.
The organisation should therefore establish its desired outcomes before deciding which technology categories or suppliers to investigate.
These outcomes should also be measurable. Improving safety, for example, needs to be translated into specific indicators such as response times, avoidable incidents or the effectiveness of follow-up interventions.
The Right Technology Is Only One Part of the Decision
A common mistake is assuming that selecting the technically strongest solution will guarantee successful adoption.
Even when a technology performs its intended function, implementation can fail because of factors unrelated to the product itself.
Care recipients may find the solution intrusive or difficult to use. Staff may not understand how it supports their work. Existing systems may not integrate, and operational responsibilities may remain unclear.
Funding arrangements, supplier dependencies and ongoing support costs can create further complications.
These challenges are explored through the NASSS framework, which identifies seven influences affecting technology adoption, scale-up and sustainability.
The framework considers the condition or care need, the technology, the value proposition, the people adopting it, the organisation, the wider system, and how the solution is embedded and adapted over time.
Our article Why Care Technology Adoption Fails: Seven Influences Every Provider Should Understand introduces these influences and provides access to the complete eight-part series.
The important lesson is that successful technology selection requires an understanding of the entire environment in which the solution will operate.
From Technology Features to Sustainable Value
When comparing assistive technologies, providers should look beyond the initial purchase price and advertised capabilities.
A solution that appears affordable may introduce substantial costs through implementation, integration, training, licensing, maintenance and ongoing monitoring.
Similarly, a technology that performs well during a controlled demonstration may encounter difficulties when deployed across multiple facilities or diverse home environments.
A practical evaluation should address six considerations:
Care needs and outcomes: Does the technology address a clearly defined need and deliver benefits that matter to care recipients and providers?
Usability and acceptance: Can the intended users operate it comfortably, and will staff incorporate it into everyday care?
Technical suitability: Is the solution reliable, secure, interoperable and appropriate for the intended environment?
Operational integration: How will the technology affect workflows, responsibilities, escalation processes and support arrangements?
Commercial sustainability: What is the total cost of ownership, and does the supplier offer a viable long-term service model?
Scalability and adaptability: Can the solution evolve as care needs, organisational requirements and technologies change?
These considerations provide a more meaningful basis for comparing suppliers than feature lists alone.
They also help providers distinguish between technologies that work in isolation and solutions capable of becoming part of sustainable care delivery.
Pilot With a Purpose
Pilots can help providers test assumptions before committing to wider deployment.
However, a successful pilot should demonstrate more than whether the technology works.
It should establish whether the solution improves the intended outcomes, is accepted by users and can operate within realistic staffing, support and funding arrangements.
Providers should define success measures before commencing a pilot, including the circumstances under which the solution would be modified, expanded or discontinued.
Importantly, the pilot should reflect normal operating conditions rather than relying on exceptional support from project teams or enthusiastic individuals.
Otherwise, a solution may appear successful during testing but become difficult to sustain when deployed more broadly.
The objective is to develop evidence for an investment decision, not simply demonstrate technical feasibility.
Independent Advice Before Committing to a Solution
The assistive technology market offers considerable opportunities for Australian aged care and disability providers.
However, the number of available products, platforms and suppliers makes independent evaluation increasingly important.
Technology decisions should be informed by care objectives, operational requirements, evidence of effectiveness and long-term value rather than supplier claims alone.
Through Technology Advisory, eHomeCare helps providers assess technology options and make informed decisions that support their care delivery objectives.
Where technology selection forms part of a broader organisational direction, Digital Strategy can help establish the priorities and capabilities needed before individual solutions are chosen.
The Map Is Not the Destination
The growing AgeTech market provides an increasingly detailed map of what technology can offer.
But a map is only useful when you understand your starting point and have decided where you want to go.
For care providers, this means beginning with care needs, desired outcomes and organisational readiness before comparing products or suppliers.
The best assistive technology is not necessarily the most advanced solution. It is the one that delivers meaningful, sustainable value for the people receiving care and the organisation supporting them.
Hubert van Dalen is the founder of eHomeCare, providing independent digital strategy, governance, technology and transformation advisory services to Australian aged care and disability providers.
REFERENCE
Keren Etkin, TheGerontechnologist. 2025 AgeTech Market Map — Eighth Edition.
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