Several companies working in aged care and social housing have been named winners of Telstra’s annual Business Awards.
GenWise Health, an online clinic platform designed specifically for aged care, took out the main award of National Business of the Year, in addition to Micro Business of the Year and South Australian Business of the Year.
The Adelaide-based company was formed by two GPs working in residential aged care who found inefficient record keeping of medical notes, poor communication and a lack of peer support particularly challenging.
In 2014 they developed GenWise as a service for GPs working outside traditional clinic environments to help save time, improve efficiencies, be better remunerated and benefit from the support of fellow GPs.
Family Doctors Plus – a medical service that focuses on community education with a goal of empowering people to take charge of their own well being – was named Queensland Business of the Year.
The company, set up by Dr Fiona Raciti and Dr Maria Boulton, also offers corporate services to help local businesses improve the health of their staff and reduce time lost to illness and injury.
Recognising a need for on-site doctors in aged care facilities, Family Doctors Plus has recently established satellite clinics at two residential care locations.
Youngcare, an organisation fighting for freedom of choice for young people with high care needs and their loved ones, took out the Queensland Charity Award.
Launched in 2015, Youngcare develops premium, age-appropriate housing solutions, access to grants and runs a national support line to support young people to exit or avoid admission into inappropriate housing.
Another charity working to address social housing issues – ‘sleepbus’ – took ou the Victorian Charity of the Year award.
Sleepbus is the world’s first charity converting old buses into temporary overnight accommodation for homeless people.
In just eight weeks, founder Simon Rowe, was able to raise $100,000 through crowd funding to begin building the first sleepbus, which features 22 sleep pods, two toilets, personal lockers and pet pods for companion animals.
Security is provided through an overnight security person and monitored security system.
The charity’s goal is to build 319 buses, which would provide more than two million safe sleeps per year at an operational cost of $20 per sleep.
