"Say a resident falls over and is lying on the ground, you don't just lift her up because she is likely to break a hip, so carers use lifting equipment," Alder said.

"Typically what happens is people don't know where that equipment is and so they go running around looking for it. With RFID, you go to the nearest [computer] screen and you can locate it within two minutes, instead of 10."

The iPad implementation was undertaken so that staff could type up patient notes straight away rather than writing paper reports at the end of the shift which could take up to 40 minutes to complete.

In addition, the residents were given access to interactive Wii games such as golf/tennis and also played interactive tournaments of scrabble against other care facilities who had rolled out similar e-health programs.

Alder said that as the NBN rollout gains momentum one possibility that will be opened is the implementation of machine to machine (M2M) remote monitoring of elderly people who chose to live at home and may be alone.