David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

On the issue of the substantial issue of investment in e-health, Mr. Thompson's opening statement was quite frank regarding where we are at because he rightly said that implementing technology and e-health solutions is a key enabler to the delivery of integrated care. He goes on to say:

Our technology and e-health solutions need to be radically overhauled in order to provide the type of solutions required for a modern health service. Today our health service is being held back with inefficient, and often paper based patient interactions, with a patient’s presence required due to the lack of tools rather than the patient need.

I am struck that even with a lot of what is being planned, we are a long way away from where we need to be. We are not using unique patient identifiers in the way we should; we do not have electronic records operating across the health service anywhere near the level we should; we do not have integrated IT systems across many areas, and we have heard for a long time about the need for an integrated financial management system, integrated waiting list management systems and so on. There is, therefore, a long road to travel before we can get to a point where Mr. Thompson can say that the service is not held back because of the lack of solutions and investments in this area. Will he comment on that first?