Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 14 September 2016
Select Committee on the Future of Healthcare
Future of Health Care: eHealth Ireland
9:00 am
Mr. Richard Corbridge:
Deputy O'Connell mentioned savings and efficiencies. The electronic health record business case, which the HSE, eHealth Ireland Committee and the Chief Clinical Information Officers Council has approved, is now with the Department of Health. It stresses the efficiencies and safety savings that can be made through implementing an electronic health record system. It does not give a literal figure for each hospital, community setting and mental health setting. That has been proven in the NHS in particular to be quite a dangerous thing to do. What it can do is make sure the system becomes more efficient and more safely delivered, and that is crucial to that business case and how we take that further forward.
The 47,000 people Deputy Louise O'Reilly referred to in our document also includes agency staff. It is the people who work in the health care system. A process will be put in place to enable a single digital identity for a member of staff who is working in the health system regardless of where they work across the health care system. The Deputy's comment on the level of technology is spot on. It is very much the case that we consider how we can use technology at a more senior level rather than its implementation at the front end. Ms Goff's team drives us to make sure that is not what we do. That is unique for Ireland. In other jurisdictions in which I have worked, the clinicians have said they want and need this technology rather than it being a management function illustrating the technology that could be in place.
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