Unreasonable and unfair: damning investigation criticises Labor’s algorithm-based tool for aged care
Report from commonwealth ombudsman finds ‘technological black box’ ignores transparency recommendations from robodebt royal commission Follow our Australian politics live blog for latest updates Get our daily political email , free app or daily news podcast An algorithm used by the federal government to assess the level of care older Australians are entitled to is unreasonable, unfair and lacks…
A new investigation by the Commonwealth Ombudsman has criticized a government algorithm used to assess the level of care for older Australians, finding it to be unreasonable, unfair, and lacking human oversight. The algorithm, part of the Integrated Assessment Tool (IAT), ignores transparency recommendations from a previous royal commission, the robodebt royal commission.
The Ombudsman, Iain Anderson, stated that aged care assessors are restricted from overriding the IAT's decisions, even when they are clinically inappropriate. The IAT's decision-making process is a "technological black box" as there is no public information explaining how inputs are converted into outcomes. The Ombudsman also found that the department failed to follow transparency recommendations from the robodebt royal commission, and the legislation needs to be changed to allow assessors to change incorrect algorithmic decisions. Legal issues surrounding the tool and a lack of oversight are significant concerns.
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