Lee Martin
CEO & Director of Care, Tanunda Lutheran Home Inc
Biography
Lee Martin – RN, JP, MACN, GAICD
Lee Martin has been involved in health and accommodation for many years. He’s now the Chief Executive Officer / Director of Care at Tanunda Lutheran Home Inc. He has a degree in Health Science, Graduate Certificate of Social Science, Diploma of Government Management and completed various management, health, accreditation, and governance courses.
Lee has been acknowledged for his visionary talent, abilities to act and to lead with an inclusive, positive, and progressive attitude. Lee has a “can do attitude”. He enjoys assisting others by mentoring them to learn how to do things differently.
He is a director of the ACCPA Board and participates on the National Member Advisory Committee. On a local level, is the Chair of the Barossa & Districts Health Advisory Council and a Member of the SA Country PHN Local Health Cluster.
The future of the aged care workforce is robotics – safe, efficient and manageable robots to do repetitive tasks.
Tanunda Lutheran Home over the past years has introduced robots to assist in back of house tasks. Many lessons have been learnt during the implementation process. This presentation will discuss the good, bad and ugly of introducing robots into a building that required some major retrofitting. Australia is rapidly entering the robot space with many overseas countries already utilising robots in the health arena. Research indicates that robots can do 25 percent of what humans can do. With the growing number and types of robots available in the Australian market it is now time to consider the future of how robotics can assist the aged care sector and in particular for the workforce. With the current shortage of staff in all areas of the aged care sector robots will be able to fill the voids. There is a growing swell of organisations who specialise in robotics in Australia, some based here in Adelaide. The cost of the robots are decreasing with the abilities and technology increasing. The return on investment when introducing robots is real and achievable. Reduction in work related injuries caused by staff repeatedly doing tasks that can be done by a machine is a way of making working in the aged sector safer.
As more robots are mobilised there is a need to introduce scheduling software which has now been produced and shown to have great advantages making sure robots are doing what they should be on time and in sync with other robots in the facility. Useful data is then available that is then used to improve the services supported by the robots.
Tanunda Lutheran Home has robots moving various food and linen containers around the facility. There is a robot using ultraviolet light to disinfect large areas and corridors being used throughout the facility. Trials of cleaning robots is soon to commence – cleaning the many long corridors allowing the cleaning staff to spend more time keeping the resident rooms clean and dust free. The PARO robotic Seal is being deployed to assist in the resident comfort space.
The future of robots is endless, I know of other robots that are soon to be tested and developed for use in the health and aged care sectors. Our residents and staff are well versed in what the robots can do, no staff member has lost their job or had their hours reduced. Our staff do things differently with the robots assisting them with routine daily tasks. Believe it or not, our residents and staff believe the robots have their own characters and are constantly talking to the robots are they come by.