On-campus teaching in Universities will be deemed essential under level-5 – Harris confirms

Paddy Henry; Editor.sin@gmail.com

Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science Simon Harris has confirmed that on-campus teaching in Universities will be deemed essential under the new tighter Covid-19 restrictions, due to come into effect from Thursday,

Higher and Further Education will be deemed essential, provided that onsite presence is required, or in scenarios where coursework cannot be completed remotely.

The Cabinet met last month to rubber stamp the implementation of a Level-5 Nationwide lockdown which is due to last for the entirety of the month of November, in an attempt to combat the recent surge in coronavirus case numbers nationally.

Speaking about what the developments meant for Third level institutions, Minister Harris said:

“Our further and higher education institutions have already moved classes primarily online, with student and staff welfare being of paramount importance. I want to pay tribute to the collective efforts of staff and students in continuing educational programmes in this way.

“We are now in a scenario where Ireland as a whole must move to Level 5 of the Government’s plan for living with Covid, and that means that all further and higher education institutions should continue to deliver the vast majority of classes online.

Paris Ediagbonya

After more than three years of research led by NUI Galway, a hand hygiene toolkit designed to aid staff in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) has been published.

The toolkit, titled: ‘A Moment for Hand Hygiene in the Intensive Care Unit: How Can Compliance Be Improved?’ was designed to help staff identify and address barriers to hand hygiene compliance.

The research, funded by the Health Research Board, was carried out with the help of ICU staff nationwide, particularly those from the Saolta Healthcare group, the public, and national and international researchers.

The aim of the project, conducted by Dr Paul O’Connor from NUI Galway’s School of Medicine, was to take a scientific approach to establishing how to make hand hygiene practices in ICUs more effective.

Dr O’Connor said: “Although hand hygiene practice is simple to carry out, the behaviour related to hand hygiene is complex and is not readily understood, explained, or changed.”

The research found that ICU staff can overestimate the frequency in which they engage in hand hygiene and observed that staff did not find standardised training packages and audits, often used to help improve hand hygiene, effective.

Dr O’Connor continued, stating, “Hand hygiene is crucial to infection prevention and control. There is no universal solution to improving hand hygiene practice. There is a need for an intervention to be tailored to the specific needs of a particular unit rather than a one-size fits all approach.”

Infections obtained in healthcare settings are the most persistent complications that impact patients, especially those in ICU.

While healthcare associated infections affects 4% of patients worldwide and result in almost 100,000 deaths in the US annually, in ICU’s, there have been reported rates of infection between 20% and 30%.

Effective hand hygiene procedures were found to be the most successful way to combat this.

According to Dr O’Connor, hand hygiene recommendations made by organisations such as the World Health Organization, lack in research evidence to aid in implementing them.

“As a result, interventions to improve hand hygiene practices are often not based on sound scientific knowledge, may be of limited effectiveness, and limited resources are not being used efficiently,” he stated.

Dr Mairéad O’Driscoll, Chief Executive at the Health Research Board stated that, “Covid-19 has forced everyone to think about hand hygiene differently. Compliance with good practice is even more important in Intensive Care settings.” 21 potential interventions to improving hand hygiene were identified through this study and were rated in relation to their likely efficacy.

Ensuring that essential supplies were available was found to be the most important intervention, alongside senior leaders acting as role models and personal focused training. Disciplinary measures such as punishment letters were not well received.

“We know that hand hygiene interrupts the transmission of bacteria and viruses, it is more important than ever during the Covid-19 pandemic,” Dr Michael Power, Co-Principal Investigator on the project, finished.

research in laboratories, small group learning with learners whose particular needs require additional support and scheduled access to libraries and other onsite study space for those students who do not otherwise have suitable facilities or home environment to access learning remotely as potential parameters for essential on campus learning.

Added to these, research activities which cannot be undertaken remotely were also coined by Minister Harris as examples of essential work for on campus access.

Onsite mental health services

Minister Harris stated that it would be up to individual colleges to decide what services they deem essential. Photo: Extra.ie on campus were also deemed among the services classified as essential by the Minister. On-Campus accommodation

Neasa Gorrell

On 19thof October, NUI Galway Spin Out successfully assisted UCD in facilitating several clinical skills exams for final year medical students. NUI Galway were able to supply University College Dublin with Qpercom Observe-an advanced remote video technology and digital assessment solution commonly used in various medical practices. Qpercom Observe is a software that is now used in universities across the globe. It has added video integration, which allows for universities and other institutions to maintain time schedules, a crucial aspect for the educational community during the Covid-19 pandemic. UCD were no longer able to carry out the clinical assessments at the on-site locations in St. Vincent’s University Hospital and Mater Misericordiae University Hospital, as Dublin progressed into level three lockdown. It was then that NUI Galway called on Senior Lecturer of the school of Medicine, and CEO of Qpercom, Dr Thomas Kropmans to assist in facilitating the exams remotely. Qpercom, a Galway-based IT specialist company, together with NUI Galway Spin Out were able to assist UCD in carrying out 90% of the examinations remotely for the approximate 200 students that partake in the examination each year. This was no small feat for Qpercom or NUI Galway, as Professor Allys Guérandel, St Vincent’s Hospital, Department of Psychiatry, remarked, “These exams are crucial for our medical students and we are obliged to ensure that students are competent and well equipped to practice medicine.” Enda Griffin, Technical Sales Executive at Qpercom, discussed the difficult design process involved

“The Level 5 measures announced designate complexes will be permitted to stay open under higher and further education as essential insofar the new rules, but visitors will not be permitted as onsite presence is required and such education in line with the current restrictions. activities cannot be held remotely. “ Harris encouraged students to avoid public

The Minister stated that classification of transport where possible if they are traveling to what would be deemed essential for on-campus University. teaching will be determined by each institu- Speaking to SIN, Student’s Union Welfare and tion individually, but mentioned teaching and Equality Officer Róisín Nic Lochlainn welcomed the announcement from the Minister, praising it for providing a degree of clarity for students.

“I think it’s good that Simon Harris has officially said that some teaching should be on campus where they can be. It’s giving students some sort of an oncampus experience. It’s good that he has concretely said what can and can’t happen”.

Nic Lochlainn did however express her disappointment that issues relating to private student accommodation were not addressed by the Minister.

“It is disappointing that Minister Harris didn’t mention anything about private student accommodation or anything about refunds for students.

“It’s a shame that there is no clarity over accommodation, which is probably the biggest issue affecting students right now”, she said.

She also welcomed the inclusion of mental health services on campus as an essential service which she says will give students in counselling more comfort.

“It’s good that he has said something concrete about that , something that we were fighting for was for the counselling service to have specific rooms on campus for students who don’t have any privacy at home and don’t have any comfortable safe spaces to have a counselling Zoom or phone call.

Hopefully, that will push the University to get those rooms on campus because that’s something we need for students who don’t have any privacy

NUI Galway publishes New Hand Hygiene Toolkit for Intensive Care Units

NUI Galway assists University College Dublin in carrying out remote clinical medical exams

in their homes “. in the facilitation of the clinical skills examinations, stating: “It was not easy. Technically and logistically it was a major challenge but thankfully we managed the examination.”

In explaining the need for such technology, Dr Thomas Kropmans, CEO, Qpercom, said that,

“Zoom, MS Teams and Google Meet have changed the world of communications, however this particular exam requires a flow of students going through a series of consecutive stations (video rooms) with simulated patients or actors while examiners complete their assessment form while observing the same video room. This functionality is missing in these established platforms but Qpercom’s platform can manage the process with ease.”

David Cunningham, Qpercom co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, gave us further insight into the technical processes carried out by the Qpercom Observe technology for this unique exam situation, in saying:

“Moving students from one video station to the next, while all parties participate remotely, be they actors and patients or examiners and interviewers, and the retrieval of assessment data, all represent major logistical and technical challenges but they are challenges which we believe we have solved using Qpercom Observe.”

This was a huge success for both NUI Galway Spin Out and Qpercom in cooperating with the UCD Medical department, as it is the first research department in Europe supporting this proof of concept.

With the move to online learning for many universities and institutions around the world, there is no doubt that people will be hearing more about this innovative technology in the near future, and may even end up sitting an online exam facilitated by Qpercom Observe.