Kat Withers is the General Manager of Warrigal Goulburn and a Registered Nurse with more than 12 years of experience across Aged Care, medical, surgical and emergency nursing, as well as clinical education. Throughout her career, Kat has been passionate about improving the quality of care through innovation, evidence-based practice, and empowering the teams to deliver exceptional outcomes for older people.
At Warrigal Goulburn, Kat leads a large multidisciplinary team, fostering a culture of person-centred care, compassion, and continuous improvement. She has played a key role in implementing innovative models of care and emerging technologies that support resident wellbeing, clinical excellence, and proactive health management.
Kat is particularly passionate about creating environments where older people can thrive with dignity, independence, and meaningful connection. She believes technology should enhance, not replace, human care, and is committed to finding solutions that improve both resident outcomes and staff experience.
Seeing Without Watching: Using Radar Technology to Predict Health Decline Before It Becomes a Crisis
Most technology in aged care responds after something has happened: a fall is detected, an alert is triggered, or a change in symptoms becomes visible. At Warrigal’s Goulburn residential care home, we set out to change that timeline.
This presentation shares our experience deploying Care Companion, an ultra-wideband (UWB) radar sensing system developed in partnership with Ericom, as Australia’s first health-related field application of the technology, and what we are learning about its potential as a predictive and preventative health tool.
Unlike cameras or wearables, non-penetrating UWB radar continuously senses movement and breathing patterns without capturing images or requiring residents to wear a device. Over time, it establishes an individual baseline and flags changes that may warrant clinical review. Early experience suggests changes in respiration, restlessness or mobility can offer an earlier indication of an emerging issue, such as a urinary tract infection or a deteriorating condition, than routine observation alone.
We will share what the pilot has shown about shifting from reactive to preventative care, including reductions in falls and in hospital transfers linked to infection, and a greater ability to identify and treat infections in-house before they escalate. We will frame these as part of a broader story: what earlier detection means not just for residents and their families, but for the workload on homes and the pressure on the wider health system. We will also be clear about what these results can and cannot demonstrate, and where further evidence is required.
Amanda Archer and Kat Withers will provide both executive and operational perspectives on the pilot, covering the strategic case for early-signal technology, governance and clinical risk considerations, and how the technology has changed clinical decision-making and workflows at Goulburn.
The session will also explore the broader questions the pilot has raised for Warrigal and the sector, including privacy, trust, predictive technology and how organisations determine when an emerging technology is ready for wider use.
Delegates will leave with a practical view of what it takes to trial and govern an emerging predictive technology in aged care, from clinical and privacy considerations through to measuring whether it is working.