Web services Six voluntary organisations are joining up with the irishhealth.com website to provide online clinics where people can get information and advice on epilepsy, asthma, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, depression and Alzheimer's disease.
The joint projects represent a significant expansion of the services provided by irishhealth.com which is Ireland's most visited health website.
More than half a million Irish people live with one of the six conditions. While each of the six voluntary organisations intend to maintain their own individual websites, it is believed that using the irishhealth.com platform will bring the relevant information to a much wider audience. The website has nearly 62,500 registered members and receives more than 200,000 hits each month from some 105,000 individuals.
The voluntary organisations concerned are the Asthma Society of Ireland, Aware, the Alzheimer Society of Ireland, Brainwave - the Irish Epilepsy Association, Diabetes Federation of Ireland and the MS Society of Ireland. The agreements will run for an initial period of three years. Discussions are also taking place with the Arthritis Foundation of Ireland on co-developing an arthritis clinic.
The chief executive of Brainwave, Mike Glynn, said the online clinic to be developed with irishhealth.com would be an important resource to help raise awareness of epilepsy.
"Awareness is the biggest benefit and, for a hidden condition like epilepsy, is a major, major issue," he said.
While an estimated 40,000 people in Ireland have epilepsy, there was still a stigma attached to it and people generally felt it was not in their interest to publicly admit to having it, he said.
People were often given out-of-date information by health services and had difficulty accessing the most up-to-date information on epilepsy, he said, and the website clinic would provide this. It was planned that a specialist epilepsy nurse would have a big input into the clinic and people could also use it to find epilepsy specialists in Ireland, Mr Glynn said.
The managing director of MedMedia Group, which publishes irishhealth.com, John Gibbons, said that in some respects the site was providing a service that should be provided by the State. "These are all long-term conditions, and the aim is to help people live with and manage these illnesses," he said.
The information and advice will be jointly developed. Some will come from a large pool of "ask the doctor" questions and answers already built up by irishhealth.com. Mr Gibbons said a long-term aim would be to employ specialist doctors to answer very specific or detailed questions relating to each of the conditions.
"People want the most up-to-date information and given that we have a breaking news service, we will be able to provide that," Mr Gibbons said.
Multi-media resources will also be available free. For example, on the asthma site there will be guides to using medication and inhalers. In the case of diabetes, there will be a facility to enable people to record their blood sugar levels, and to keep a confidential record which can be printed as a chart and taken to a doctor. There will also be patient discussion channels.
The online clinics will be rolled out over the coming six to 12 months. The first, with the diabetes federation, is expected to start in September, to be followed before the end of the year by the Alzheimer's clinic.
Aware chief executive Geraldine Clare said the organisation always welcomed any opportunity to get the message across about depression, particularly the fact that it was a very treatable illness. Many people with the condition still go untreated, she said.
Aware's helpline number is 1890 303 302.