Northern Ireland to invest in telehealth

Northern Ireland health minister, Paul Goggins, has announced a £1m investment in telehealth and telemedicine initiatives across the country.

The announcement follows a telehealth seminar in Northern Ireland, hosted by the Belfast Boston Connection earlier this month.

Goggins said: “We live in remarkable times and we have technologies that have the potential to bring expertise closer to patients and allow us to target our resources more effectively so we can help more people live independent lives.

“It is a tremendous advance when very ill patients with rare conditions can be seen and diagnosed by a key specialist half a world away. What a relief to those patients from not having to make sometimes long and difficult journeys to specialist centres.”

The event aimed to build on existing relations between Boston’s health and technology sectors and Belfast’s health care excellence and will look to explore areas of further co-operation between the two cities and their wider regions.

It looked at developing economic and knowledge links between Belfast and Boston and methods of transferring health technology research to develop the telehealth sector in Northern Ireland and also demonstrated case studies in the telehealth sector to the audience of public sector stakeholders.

Goggins added: “Technology has made a significant contribution to making this scheme possible. Beds, chairs and rooms are fitted with sensors which alert the trust to resident’s movements – this assists staff to identify problems and develop solutions, to ensure residents receive tailor-made services and the best possible care.

“We must continue to develop new ways of working to make services accessible to our entire population. The £1m I have announced will be used to stimulate new thinking about how technology can be used to further the reform and modernisation of acute and community services. Northern Ireland is not as far advanced as we need to be in the use of telecare, and we need to catch up.”

Telehealth is now expected to feature in the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety’s programme of reform. There are currently 285,000 pensioners in the country, with the number set to increase by 30% over the next 20 years.

Goggins said: “We need to plan now for how society and the health service in particular will cop with such a significant demographic change. No-one wants to go into hospital if they can get the care and treatment they need closer to home.”