Live Pilot with a National Healthcare Provider

Mary

Aged Care

Emotionally intelligent daily calls for aged care residents.

Mary calls aged care residents daily. Through emotionally intelligent conversations she listens for loneliness and emotional distress, helps staff notice change over time and prompt reassessment, and gives every concern a clear path to a human. Every call produces supporting evidence the provider can map to the strengthened Quality Standards.

What Mary does

Why daily connection matters

The WHO Commission on Social Connection reported in 2025 that one in six people worldwide is lonely, with a modelled ~871,000 deaths every year attributed to loneliness.1 Inside care homes it is the norm, not the exception: international studies suggest up to 61% of residents are moderately lonely, and 35% severely.2 This is not just sad — it is dangerous. Social isolation is associated with a 32% increase in all-cause mortality across 2.2 million people studied.5

The workforce cannot close this gap alone. Australian homes must now deliver mandated care minutes, yet departmental quarterly data through 2025 shows only around 43–60% of homes meeting both targets.7 Mary adds connection on top of that care — a daily conversation that consumes no care minutes and takes nothing away from hands-on staff time. She supplements, and never substitutes for, human contact, care minutes or clinical assessment.

Mary's daily cadence is modelled on the human-call evidence: in a randomised trial, empathy-trained human callers measurably reduced loneliness, depression and anxiety in four weeks.8 That is human-delivered evidence — Mary is an AI companion informed by it, not a treatment, and her own outcomes are under evaluation.

up to 61%

of care-home residents are moderately lonely; 35% severely — international pooled meta-analysis2

62.5%

of Australians entering permanent residential care had depressive symptoms3 — yet fewer than 3% access Medicare-subsidised mental-health care each year4

+32%

higher all-cause mortality with social isolation, across 2.2 million people5

~2 min/day

of social interaction is all some residents with dementia receive — UK care-home observation6

What Mary is — and is not

  • Mary supplements — she never substitutes for human contact, care minutes, or clinical assessment. Clinical decisions always rest with qualified people.
  • Mary does not detect or screen for cognitive decline. Her longitudinal conversation records help staff notice change over time and prompt reassessment — the evidence for voice-based cognitive screening is still emerging, and no such tool holds TGA clearance.
  • Mary does not make a home compliant. Her records are supporting evidence the provider maps to the strengthened Quality Standards — for example Standard 7.1 (minimise boredom and loneliness) and Action 5.4.5 (monitor and reassess on deterioration).9 Conformity is assessed by the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission.
  • Mary is not a treatment or a crisis service. There are no completed trials of AI calls on loneliness outcomes in aged care; Mary is modelled on the human-call evidence and evaluated honestly.

Powered by Kate

Every call Mary makes is orchestrated by Kate, the intelligence engine behind all CAREPLANS AI companions. Kate manages scheduling, emotional analysis, concern flagging, and escalation to human clinicians across every persona and every vertical.

Talk to us

If you work in aged care and want to see how Mary supports residents and helps your team evidence the strengthened Quality Standards, we would welcome the conversation.

andrew@careplans.io

If you or someone you know needs support now: Lifeline 13 11 14 · Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636 · FriendLine 1800 424 287 · OPAN 1800 700 600 · ACQSC 1800 951 822 · In an emergency call 000.

Sources

  1. World Health Organization, Commission on Social Connection, From Loneliness to Social Connection — Charting a Path to Healthier Societies (June 2025). 1 in 6 people worldwide lonely; ~871,000 deaths per year attributed to loneliness — a modelled estimate, not a registry count.
  2. Gardiner C. et al. (2020). What is the prevalence of loneliness amongst older people living in residential and nursing care homes? A systematic review and meta-analysis. Age and Ageing, 49(5), 748–757. Pooled moderate loneliness 61% (95% CI 41–80), severe 35% (95% CI 14–60) — international pooled data with wide intervals; no national Australian residential-care prevalence study using a validated scale exists.
  3. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Mental health in aged care (updated July 2024): 62.5% of 290,224 people entering permanent residential aged care 2017–2022 had at least mild depressive symptoms on the Cornell Scale (~16% major). The national Cornell entry series ended October 2022.
  4. Australian Psychological Society (2023), Psychology in aged care position statement: fewer than 3% of residents access Medicare-subsidised psychology or psychiatry services per year.
  5. Wang F. et al. (2023). A systematic review and meta-analysis of 90 cohort studies of social isolation, loneliness and mortality. Nature Human Behaviour, 7, 1307–1319 (N=2,205,199). All-cause mortality HR 1.32 for social isolation; 1.14 for loneliness.
  6. Ballard C. et al. (2018). Impact of person-centred care training and person-centred activities on quality of life, agitation, and antipsychotic use in people with dementia living in nursing homes (WHELD): a cluster-randomised controlled trial. PLoS Medicine, 15(2):e1002500. UK observational work behind the trial found residents with dementia receiving as little as ~2 minutes of social interaction per day; adding ~10 minutes/day of person-centred interaction improved quality of life and agitation.
  7. Australian Department of Health and Aged Care, quarterly financial and care-minutes reporting (2025): approximately 43–60% of residential homes met both mandated care-minutes targets (215 minutes/day including 44 registered-nurse minutes) on their own staffing, varying by quarter.
  8. Kahlon M.K. et al. (2021). Effect of layperson-delivered, empathy-focused program of telephone calls on loneliness, depression, and anxiety among adults during the COVID-19 pandemic: a randomized clinical trial. JAMA Psychiatry, 78(6), 616–622 (N=240). Loneliness −1.1 UCLA points (d=0.48), depression −1.5 PHQ-8, anxiety −1.8 GAD-7 over 4 weeks. Human-delivered evidence; Mary's call cadence is modelled on it.
  9. Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, Strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards (in force 1 November 2025): Standard 7, Outcome 7.1 (Daily living) requires actions to "minimise boredom and loneliness"; Action 5.4.5 requires processes to monitor and reassess on deterioration in behaviour, cognition, mental, physical or oral health. Providers are assessed for conformity by the Commission.

Statistics above describe population research and regulatory data, not Mary's own outcomes; Mary's effectiveness is under evaluation in pilot.