Newly merged BaptistCare wins big at ITAC
Hot on the heels of announcing the completed unification of Baptcare VIC, TAS, SA, Baptist Care SA and BaptistCare NSW, ACT, WA the group has taken home two out of four ITAC awards this week.
Winners share their suprise and joy with Australian Ageing Agenda at the ITAC 2025 awards at Marvel Stadium, Melbourne, on Wednesday evening, which saw more than 59 nominees up for awards in four categories – data insights, capacity building, technology transformation and research and development.
Addressing the awards dinner Ageing Australia chief executive officer Tom Symondson said the awards recognised initiatives that transform the delivery of aged care, community care and retirement living services, enhance the quality of life for older Australians and pave the way for an impactful, sustainable sector in the future.
With a focus on innovation, collaboration and measurable outcomes, Mr Symondson said the awards aimed to inspire others to think creatively and embrace transformative approaches to aged care challenges.
The Data Insights Award recognises initiatives that leverage data analytics, predictive modelling or insights to improve decision-making, enhance outcomes for the older person or streamline operations in aged and community care – celebrating the power of data in driving evidence-based innovation.
Finalists included the clinical governance team at Bethanie Group, the BaptCare data and analytics team and the Business Intelligence app ACH Group for residential workforce and customer management, with BaptCare, which is now part of recently merged entity BaptistCare, taking home the award.
“I’m quite surprised that I got the win, because there were plenty of good nominations. The project that I led was taking our data and analytics from delivering reporting into predictive insights, machine learning insights. That’s our most recent deliverable,” Niro Sathiyamoorthy, head of BaptCare data and analytics, told AAA on the night.
“We’re trying to get some big wins on the board, so what we did was observe some low-utilisation residents and try to understand some of the key drivers behind the result. We learned that tenure was a key driver for low utilisation, so that led to actionable insights, which led to actions, basically.
“I’m very grateful to be up on stage and be recognised. It’s very rewarding.”
The Capacity Building Award acknowledges programs that enhance the skills, knowledge, and capabilities of aged and community workforce, or empower older Australians to live fuller lives – celebrating initiatives that build sustainable capacity within the sector.
Finalists included Helping Hand, Holstep Health’s Stepped Care for Older Adults and BaptistCare – with BaptistCare taking the award.
“We’re so excited and proud to be receiving this award,” said Petrina Greenwood, head of IT strategy and innovation at BaptistCare.
“Our submission revolved around the innovation culture that we’re building at BaptistCare. We’re making innovation inclusive for all of our employees – a place and a culture where everybody’s free to participate and we’re having a lot of success,” she told AAA.
“We’re using really fun, creative ways to engage people in innovation and what we’re noticing is because of that engagement, they’re actually coming up with fantastic, amazing solutions that actually benefit our residents, clients and communities. So that’s really exciting.”
Research and Development Award finalists included the Pingelly Stay in Place Team from Pingelly Community Resource Centre, Southern Cross Care NSW and ACT, and the embed team at Silverchain, with Southern Cross Care, NSW and ACT emerging victorious.
“I’m incredibly grateful to Ageing Australia and to the entire team. I personally feel thrilled for our team who’s worked incredibly hard on this program and especially for the University of Sydney and the Western Sydney Emotional Health District as well. This has been a really big team effort and something that we’ve been quite passionate about over the last few years,” quality, clinical and compliance manager Stephanie Petkovski told AAA.
The award focuses on projects and studies that advance knowledge in aged community care, new approaches to service delivery or addressing critical challenges, and aims to highlight the role of research in shaping the future of the sector.
The Technology Transformation Award celebrates the development and implementation of cutting edge technologies that revolutionise aged care community care service delivery, improve operational efficiency or enrich the lives of older Australians and showcases the pivotal role of technology in creating meaningful change.
Range Care, Umps Health and Anglicare Southern Queensland and Australian Unity Home Health and Biarri Optimisation were finalists, with Umps Health and Anglicare SQ winning. Umps Health collected the award on behalf of Anglicare SQ who were unable to attend due to Cyclone Alfred.
“I think it’s great recognition of the work that the project team from Anglicare and Umps did,” Umps chief executive officer Adam Jahnke told AAA.
“We really embedded our technology in Anglicare’s office to come up with the solution that we developed… we always wanted to ensure that what we were building was going to go somewhere, It had a home and I think we’ve achieved that. Anglicare are using it, it’s actually in practice now.
“It was used as recently as last week to support their client liaison team communicate with clients in preparation for Cyclone Alfred. I just think it’s a great testament to what can be achieved when a provider works hand-in-hand with a technology provider.”
Australian Ageing Agenda is a media partner of ITAC 2025
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