Mayo island to become a virtual health beacon for the nation
WORK has got underway on a €700,000 pilot research programme which will transform Clare Island into 'a beacon for virtual health for Ireland’.
The island will become 'a living lab’ with a virtual consultation health room as part of an innovative project backed financially by CISCO, one of the world’s biggest multi-national communications companies, the Science Foundation of Ireland, NUIG and the HSE.
It will involve the installation of a number of 18 square-metre energy pods to power the project, two of which were put in place yesterday (Monday) after being transported by ferry from England.
Brendan Tobin, Clare Island community coordinator, explained: “We will have a virtual classroom with a virtual white board which can be used for conferences. There will be a living lab and virtual health consultation room and two offices.
“The project involves the appointment of a number of positions, including four researchers, a doctor and a technical engineer. They will be advertised by NUIG within the next couple of weeks and we expect the programme to be going live by the end of June.
“The biggest problem on the island is connectivity. We tried to get Vodafone to put up something but to no avail. We thought we could run the high speed broadband off the pods to people’s houses but the government licence for these only allows it to be done off the eircode area of the community centre.
“Now we have come up with a pilot project which would involve the use of a private 5G network just for the virtual health aspect and we could probably run it out to about 10 houses. It is in the process of negotiation and licences.”
Mr. Tobin explained how the project came about when David Reddington of Mayo County Council contacted the island and asked if it would be interested in being part of a pilot project to look at the provision of virtual health through the broadband connection.
He stated: “When we were discussing this we thought, we have elderly people on the island - one lady is 97 and she is still living alone. I thought why would we want to take them from their houses down to this ‘room’. Shouldn’t we be able to do this in their own homes.
“To do so we would need some technology. We got iPads with the intention of training people who are carers and nurses who are visiting these people and have them ready to be able to help with the consultation.
“But then we encountered another problem. A lot of these houses are old, pre-1912, with two to three foot wide walls and no internet connection.
“We were talking with the Western Development Commission who are responsible for the broadband connection points and what they call the connected hubs.
“The commission had been involved in a project with Derek O’Keefe, a professor of medical technology at NUIG. During Covid they succeeded in hooking up people who were in hospitals so they could talk to relatives outside.
“Brian Jordan of CISCO was working with the Department of Health and we got to talk to Martin Curley, the head of digital transformation at the HSE. They wanted to find a pilot place to run this project and they chose Clare Island.
“There is at least €700,000 involved now in this project. Most of that is going to go into research but, as part of the research team, there will be one new position on the island for somebody who will be the Patient Public Initiative (PPI).”
Mr. Tobin said when the issue of virtual health came up, islanders wondered if it was going to undermine the existing health service. “One thing the islanders stressed is that they have a wonderful health service on the island, probably a level of service that most people in the country don’t get.
“We have got two nurses from the island who respond to people’s needs day and night, 24/7. It was the nurses and the doctor who explained to everybody that this was something that would enhance the service.”