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Scale-Up4Rehab Project

University College Dublin is a partner of the Interreg north-west Europe project 'Scaling-up virtual rehabilitation in the NWE-region-Scale-Up4Rehab', approved and funded by the European Commission.

Scale-Up4Rehab is a five year project (2023-2028) which will provide a platform to take a major step forward in the digitization of the rehabilitation sector, by being the first to build an open virtual rehabilitation "clinic," which will scale up existing virtual rehabilitation therapies across north-west Europe.

Eight pilot projects of virtual rehabilitation interventions will be implemented across the region in which rehabilitation professionals in various healthcare institutions will integrate virtual rehabilitation into their daily practice.

UCD will collaborate with University College Cork (UCC) to contribute specific knowledge from both a clinical and educational perspective from the field of physiotherapy.

  • UCD will host one of the regional pilots exploring the use of virtual reality in a chronic pain population in Ireland.

  • UCD will work with UCC on a work package focused on the translation of expertise in virtual reality into education. This will include the design, trial, and evaluation of training modules for both undergraduate students and healthcare professionals in using virtual reality as a rehabilitation tool. This educational component will support capacity building, ensuring the development of expertise in health care professionals that will help to achieve sustainability in the utility of virtual reality in healthcare settings in Ireland and across north-west Europe.

  • UCD will work with UCC to develop a set of criteria for the selection of virtual intervention applications that will be approved for inclusion on the virtual rehabilitation clinic.

For additional information about Scale-Up4Rehab in UCD, Ireland:

An additional UCD advisory panel for the project includes:


(opens in a new window)Click here to view the European project partners.



A detailed overview of each of the 3 Work Packages involved in the Scale-Up4Rehab project can be found below.

North West Europe Virtual Rehabilitation Clinic

Work Package 1 is led by Saint Martinsclinic (Netherlands).

The aim of Work Package 1 is to set-up the north-west Europe virtual rehabilitation clinic consisting of an online platform hosting virtual rehabilitation interventions.

As part of Work Package 1, the process and criteria for selecting the virtual interventions will be developed. During the project period a minimum of 12 selected virtual rehabilitation interventions will be released. Next to this a business plan will be developed, including the long-term governance, business model and reimbursement strategy for the virtual rehabilitation clinic. In addition, communication activities will be carried out to inform the target groups about the opportunities the virtual rehabilitation 'clinic' offers.

Work Package 1 will include the following activities:

  1. Virtual rehabilitation clinic framework development

  2. Approval process of online rehabilitation interventions

  3. Implementation strategy development

  4. Creation of a business plan

  5. Development and implementation of a communication plan

Regional Pilots

Work Package 2 is led by St. Mauritius Therapieklinik (Germany).

The aim of Work Package 2 is the implementation of 11 regional pilots in 6 countries in which healthcare professionals in various healthcare settings are supported in using the virtual rehabilitation interventions in their daily practice.

The pilots will aim to showcase the virtual reality interventions to a broad audience in order to encourage further scaling up among healthcare professionals as well as patients groups in the region of north-west Europe. The pilots will be evaluated on the basis of effectiveness and potential scale-up barriers to use for both patients and clinicians. Additional communication activities will be carried out to support successful execution of the pilots and to disseminate the results. 

Work Package 2 will include the following activities:

  1. Pre-pilots (Belgium and France)

  2. Regional pilots (Germany, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Ireland)

  3. Knowledge exchange and evaluation

  4. Virtual Rehabilitation implementation support

  5. Implementation of communication plan

Capacity building of patients, practitioners, enterprises and other stakeholders.

Work Package 3 is led by University College Cork (Ireland).

The aim of Work Package 3 is to develop and implement capacity building activities for healthcare practitioners and patients in working with the north-west Europe virtual rehabilitation clinic.

Work Package 3 will include the following activities:

  1. Development of a virtual coaching centre

  2. Development of online training modules

  3. Local workshops in regional pilots

  4. Development of Virtual Rehabilitation intervention curriculum content for physiotherapy curricula

  5. Communication activities
Social Media Information

Project Partners


Centre National De Reeducation Fonctionnelle Et De Readaptation (Luxembourg)

Health Valley Netherlands (Netherlands)

Radboud University Medical Center (Netherlands)

Sint Maartenskliniek (Netherlands)

Tilburg University (Netherlands)

Universite De Lille (France)

University College Dublin (Ireland)

 

 


Eurasanté (France)

In4care (Belgium)

Roessingh Research and Development (Netherlands)

St. Mauritius Therapieklinik (Germany)

Uniklinik RWTH Aachen (Germany)

University College Cork (Ireland)

Centre for Translational Pain Research

University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland.
T: +353 1 716 7777 | E: ctpr@ucd.ie