Smart D8 pilots transform cancer diagnoses with AI, support men’s health and empower patients with heart failure

Smart D8 pilot projects to focus on using AI to transform cancer diagnoses, supporting men’s health and managing heart failure through patient empowerment

Announcement of 2025 pilots marks the fifth year of the community health and wellbeing programme
Smart D8 is led by The Digital Hub, Dublin City Council, St James’s Hospital and Smart Dublin
The initiative has reached over 40% of the Dublin 8 community to date

(L—R) Dr. Conor Murphy (General Practitioner and Aspire Clinical Research Fellow at RCSI University of Medicine & Health Sciences); Ana Coughlan (Community Coordinator at Smart D8); Dr. Jack Lehane (Ecosystem Manager at Smart D8); Steven O’Connell (CEO and Founder at Football Cooperative); and Eamonn Costello (CEO and Co-Founder at patientMpower). Smart D8 selection also includes Eimear Kelly (Digital Health Solutions Specialist at patientMpower). Picture by Beta Bajgartova (2025).

Smart D8, Dublin’s first smart district dedicated to addressing community health and wellbeing in the heart of Dublin 8, has announced three new pilot projects as it enters its fifth year of successfully engaging the local community.

The pilot projects will centre on accelerating cancer detection with the use of AI, driving positive conversations around men’s health through community football and supporting remote heart health monitoring for patients living with heart failure conditions.

The announced initiatives come as Smart D8 continues its commitment to enhance the health and wellbeing of local communities in the Dublin 8 area following five years of success.

Since October 2020, the Smart D8 partnership has gathered expertise across a range of areas and has established strong community connections among residents, businesses and local organisations. Through the combined effort of pilot calls, local workshop activities and engagement with existing community groups, Smart D8 has reached over 18,500 people living and working in the 45,000-strong population of Dublin 8.

Smart D8 is led by The Digital Hub, Dublin City Council, St James’s Hospital and Smart Dublin. They are joined by Tyndall National Institute, St Patrick’s Mental Health Services, Trinity College Dublin, Trinity Translational Medicine Institute, National College of Art & Design, Guinness Enterprise Centre, Health Innovation Hub Ireland and the HSE in this unique collaborative initiative.

The pilot programme of Smart D8 operates by selecting a number of health and wellbeing-focused initiatives each year following a competitive application process. Selected projects are supported with community engagement and funding as they are demonstrated in Dublin 8 for a six-month period. After this period, they are evaluated to verify the potential to scale their innovations for long-term population health and wellbeing impacts in the area and beyond.

The 2025 pilot projects that will begin implementation across the Dublin 8 area this summer include:

Early-Stage Cancer Detection by the RCSI University of Medicine & Health Sciences: This project, run by the PRiCAN research group, aims to support expedited cancer diagnoses through an AI-powered digital scribe tool, which will assist in diagnostic consultations in Centric Health GP practices in Dublin 8. The tool will support GPs by reducing administrative burden and monitoring conversations with patients for subtle symptom patterns potentially linked to cancers with the aim of prompting earlier investigation and diagnosis.
Football Cooperative by Football Cooperative CLG: This project, led by Steven O’Connell, aims to engage men in positive health behaviours through weekly pick-up football games, encouraging conversations about men’s overall physical, mental and social health. Backed by South-East Technological University (SETU), the programme has already demonstrated a social return of €17.60 for every €1 invested and will aim to co-develop a robust outcome framework to enable national scaling through partners, including the FAI and Local Sports Partnerships.
Smart Heart: Heart Failure Care in the Community by patientMpower and in partnership with St James’s Hospital Heart Support Unit: Led by Eamonn Costello and Eimear Kelly, this project involves the remote monitoring of individuals living with heart failure, a condition that affects 2% of Ireland’s population. Patients will receive connected devices that transmit blood pressure and weight data to clinicians in real-time, enabling the trial of a scalable model of community-based chronic care.

Jack Lehane, Smart D8 Ecosystem Manager, said:

“As Smart D8 enters its fifth consecutive year, I am delighted to announce the three pilot projects that will be demonstrated with the Dublin 8 community. Each year, the quality of applications for Smart D8 is increasing, which is a reflection of the interest and impact that the programme and these initiatives are creating. The three selected projects focus on key areas centred on population health and wellbeing, cemented by innovation and scalability. We look forward to supporting these projects over the coming six months and seeing the positive impact that they generate with the Dublin 8 community and wider areas to scale.”

Ana Coughlan, Smart D8 Community Coordinator, added:

“Community engagement is at the heart of Smart D8, and we’re excited to see how people living and working in Dublin 8 can participate in the three new pilot projects for 2025. Over the past five years, Smart D8 has reached more than 40% of the local population — a milestone we’re proud of as we continue to support health and wellbeing innovation in the area. These new pilots are an opportunity to respond to local health challenges in meaningful ways, where improved health and wellbeing can become more embedded into everyday life in Dublin 8 and our wider communities.”

The positive impact of Smart D8 has become evident through its enabling of successful pilot projects that have been trialled within Dublin 8 in response to local health needs. The initiative has supported a total of 16 projects to date, including Kids Speech Labs, which filled gender and cultural data gaps for early-intervention speech and language screening; Menopause and the City, a menopause education initiative to empower women and their family and friends to manage menopause symptoms; and MoveAhead, which pioneered motion-analytics technology to improve children’s movement skills and enhanced the skills of more than 500 Dublin 8 schoolchildren.

For more information on Smart D8, visit https://smartd8.ie