HomeStay Care wins tender to upgrade aged care technology in South Australia

HomeStay Care (ASX: HSC) has won a tender to upgrade technology at nine Aged Care & Housing Group Inc (ACH Group) residential care sites in South Australia.

Under the deal, the tech junior will install, service and provide maintenance of an IoT-powered assistive technology platform to the nine facilities on a site by site basis, with each site being the subject of a separate purchase order.

The ACH Group’s nine aged care sites house more than 800 residents in total.

The project will commence with the rollout of the initial Kapara site in Glenelg, SA, for 137 residents including the deployment of the Essence APAC multi-site cloud portal.

HomeStay revealed a purchase order for about $500,000 has been received for this initial site and project setup.

“Delivery of the first site and delivery of the multi-site platform are underway with ‘go live’ for first residents to commence using technology scheduled for this quarter,” it reported.

The assistive technology being provided under the deal comprises the Essence Smart Care Call platform, which includes voice-activated nurse call stations that allow two-way communication for each resident area, along with activity sensors to provide “proactive data analysis, as well as human monitoring, to determine residents’ routines and detect anomalies”.

“These early insights allow for better decision-making by care providers, allowing more focused service, minimising unnecessary care and facilitating care services more responsively,” HomeStay said.

HomeStay has been the exclusive reseller of tech company Essence APAC’s ‘smart living solutions’ in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore since inking a binding heads of agreement in July 2019.

Other commercial deals

This latest tender award follows HomeStay’s announcement on Tuesday that it has inked a three-year master services agreement with national aged care provider Bolton Clarke.

HomeStay and Essence APAC have been working with Bolton Clarke for more than 18 months including technology trial.

The newly signed deal allows for the continual innovation and implementation of assistive technology solutions powered by Essence APAC IoT devices, including Personal Emergency Response (PERS) units, motion detector sensors, smart door switches, voice-activated emergency buttons and accompanying software applications.

According to HomeStay, an initial purchase order worth $300,000 for PERS units has already been invoiced with product delivery underway.

Bolton Clarke is one of the largest Australian not-for-profit healthcare and independent living services providers. It was recently named the inaugural Future of Ageing Awards winner in the ‘Technology – Health and Wellbeing’ category thanks to the rollout of a new suite of smart technology including wearables and in-home monitoring.

In a separate announcement on Tuesday, HomeStay revealed it has received more than $430,000 cash in January from sales and strengthened its commercial relationship with Essence APAC through an upgraded binding heads of agreement.

The company also released a cleansing prospectus advising the issuance of 100,000 new shares and 12 million options that were required to remove trading restrictions under ASX rules.

By early afternoon trade, Home Stay shares were up 50% at $0.006.