The application used to arrive at the finding was showcased at the recent Jersey Tech Week Digital Health day. The data set analysed was used to demonstrate what the ‘app’ could achieve.
A visiting expert from Microsoft said that this kind of technology could help the Island make informed decisions about other major infrastructure projects.
Local tech company Nexus built the application in just over a week, using data from the ambulance service and working with artificial-intelligence application IBM Watson. They were able to show how long an ambulance would take from various places around the Island and the impact moving the hospital to different locations would have.
‘This was just a proof-of-concept to show what can be achieved,’ said Gary Stewart, director of Nexus.
‘You could also pull in traffic and police data.’
The Nexus presentation suggested that locating the hospital at St Saviour would be too far east and could have a detrimental effect on patient safety.
Head of Digital Jersey Tony Moretta said that by creating a digital twin of Jersey, where data was used to create a virtual replica or model of the Island, Jersey could easily solve problems such as where to locate the hospital.
‘The best way to think about a digital twin is almost like a Jersey simulator so you can test things out,’ he said. ‘If you’ve got all the information in there you can say, for example, that if we change the traffic layout here, what then happens to the rest of the traffic.
‘If we have something like the digital twin in place, future infrastructure decisions should become a lot easier to make and a lot more evidence-based.
‘I think the trick is to use the evidence, and make sure that is what you make the decision on, not on an anecdotal basis or on people’s opinions.
‘You do it on the hard facts of how things work in Jersey from day to day and how a new infrastructure decision would have an impact on that.’
Helena Zaum, industry solutions manager at Microsoft, was in the Island for Tech Week and agreed that digital twin technology could help Jersey.
‘There are lots of things AI could do for Jersey, the digital twin is a great place to start because it will give you a much deeper understanding of the fabric of what’s actually happening – whether that’s from a transportation point of view, a financial point of view or a caring point of view – and much more information potentially about the economic health of the Island and the implications of decision making,’ she explained.
It was suggested that the technology could also be used to reinvigorate Jersey’s retail sector and help in the fight against Asian Hornets.
Microsoft have already worked with the States of Jersey on two projects and are in discussions on a wide range of other opportunities.
Digital Jersey has put out a request for tenders to build a digital data platform and hopes that it will be up and running in the first half of next year.
