Mr. Richard Corbridge:

Deputy O’Connell mentioned the HSE engaging with the ICT industry and she is quite correct in that right across Dublin and Ireland, we see many partners that could help us. The HSE has created something called the eHealth Ireland Ecosystem. That is a group of people, now 300 in number, who come together each quarter to help eHealth Ireland drive forward its agenda. They range from some of the biggest digital organisations globally, which come and provide assistance - not at cost - to make sure we can learn from other jurisdictions and keep driving forward in how we do this. The ecosystem was set out in the original eHealth Ireland strategy as something that should exist and 12 months later, with such numbers of people involved, it has been highly successful. We use a lot of the digital organisations not as contractor partners, but as organisations that are willing to provide advice and guidance on where we go. This has been particularly useful in the past six months as we have started to learn more and more about different jurisdictions as we have built the electronic health record business case.

The Deputy also mentioned the public service card. One plan through which the Department of Health is working with the Department of Social Protection is on how the individual health identifier can be on that same card, that is, how in the future that number and code could be part of that same identity and dataset. It is a discussion between the Department of Health and the Department of Social Protection about how to make that happen. It makes complete logical sense to do it; the Deputy is absolutely right to say that. As for the speed of technology adoption - this is something on which Ms Yvonne Goff can also comment - I have worked in health care technology for 20 years. I have never seen such amazing clinical engagement as that which we have in Ireland. Clinicians in Ireland want technology and there are two key reasons for this. First, the system in Ireland is largely paper-based and clinicians can see that this perhaps is not always the easiest, most efficient and safe way of delivering health care. Second, many clinicians will have worked in other jurisdictions that have digital solutions. Consequently, our pace is very much based on the business change capability we have put in place. We must not do what the United States has done, where digital is done to clinicians and clinicians walk away from digital and stop using it.