Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 29 March 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health

Implementation of Sláintecare Reforms: Department of Health and HSE

Mr. Fran Thompson:

We received the letter giving us permission to implement EHR in the children's hospital, which we started. We received no other sanctions or permissions. We did not start those. One of the things we have learned along the way is that an incremental implementation is, as the Secretary General said, a much less risky approach. We have spoken to other countries and that is the approach a lot of them have taken. In a lot of other countries, the focus is less on national implementation and more around regional implementation, bringing data together and using a shared care record. In the past two or three weeks, we have received approval to start a procurement process on a shared care record following the submission of the business case.