Above: Hammond Innovations Executive General Manager Anna Barker with HammondCare CEO Andrew Thorburn.
We’ve all heard the news – dementia is now the leading cause of death in Australia.
According to the latest update of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s (AIHW) Dementia in Australia report, without a significant intervention, the number of Australians living with dementia will exceed 1 million by 2065.
Currently there are an estimated 433,000 Australians living with dementia – including 29,000 diagnosed under the age of 65 – and 1.7 million people involved in their care.
Intertwined with the growing need for dementia care is the potential for greater demand for palliative care services across the board, because there are simply more older Australians and they’re living longer.
In 2020, there were an estimated 4.2 million older Australians (65 and over) comprising 16% of the Australian population. This is an increase from 1.0 million (8.3% of the population) in 1970 and 2.1 million (12%) in 1995.
The number and percentage of older Australians is expected to continue to grow. By 2066, it is projected that older people in Australia will make up between 21% and 23% of the total population.
Complexity and compliance are demanding more from our workforce, while technology is driving both opportunity, and expectation.
Never before has there been a greater need to enhance the care we all provide to ageing Australians.
The need for a new approach
HammondCare has been caring for people living with complex needs for almost a century, building deep expertise in dementia and palliative care through research, clinical trials and hands-on experience.
From the small household model of residential aged care to dementia-friendly design, to world-leading palliative services, with more than 50 active research projects each year, we’ve generated evidence that has shaped practice and policy nationally and internationally. This includes commercial pharmaceutical trials in dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, positioning HammondCare at the forefront of global brain health research.
Now, we’re investing in the next step on our pathway to better care with a bold, new initiative – and we can't do it alone!
Partner with us on the pathway to better care
With Hammond Innovations, we’re taking the next step, uniting three highly-regarded entities – The Dementia Centre, The Palliative Centre, and The Centre for Positive Ageing – into an integrated collective, so we can move faster from knowledge to impact, guided always by great respect for the people we serve and upheld by the generosity of our supporters.
Harnessing focused research, creative design, groundbreaking technology and agile implementation, we put evidence into action through solutions that work in the real world.
We take burning questions and new ideas, then test, refine and apply them to create insights and solutions that transform care.
Partnering across sectors, we develop, validate, embed and scale the best care innovations, designing
- better tools that support – not replace – human connection,
- better environments that are digitally enabled but deeply personal,
- and better connections, putting the focus where it belongs – on the people we serve.
We’re building what the system needs most: pathways to better care.
Want to join us in the next step?
We’re looking for
- Research and innovation partners
Get in touch and we’ll talk!
Author: Hammond Innovations
Read time: 2 min. read
