Peter Fitzpatrick (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Health Information and Quality Authority, HIQA, has stated that the absence of a unique health identifier for individuals is the single most important deficiency in the health information infrastructure in Ireland. The Bill provides for assignment of two systems of health identifiers, namely, individual health identifiers, IHIs, for patients-service users and health service identifiers for health professionals and organisations, their employees and agents.

In keeping with HIQA recommendations, the new system of numbers will be exclusive to health care, broadly understood and be used in the public and private sector. The individual health identifiers will be made up of numbers only and contain no personal or clinical data. However, they will be underpinned by an identifier dataset designed for the purpose of ensuring unique identification. The Bill also establishes national registers for these numbers and datasets and a related governance framework.

The principal reason for the introduction of identifiers is to improve the quality and safety of care, in particular through correct patient identification. Other anticipated benefits include streamlining of record management, a reduction in repetitive and unnecessary care, facilitating e-health projects and reduced administration costs. HIQA estimates that up to 30% of the health budget may be spent on handling, collecting, searching for and storing information. Many of the benefits of introducing this scheme arise from its application in information and communication technology, ICT, improvements in the sector, known as, e-health initiatives or strategies. E-prescribing is a priority e-health project promoted by the troika and thought to have the potential to reduce public spend on drugs.

The health service provider identifier will allow all episodes of care to be traced to the provider, including the organisation and professional involved. Professionals will be assigned a unique number which will move with them if they change job or location, allowing for greater traceability. The regulatory body for the professions will provide the data necessary to populate the register. An individual health identifier is a unique, non-transferable, life-time number assigned to all individuals accessing health and social care in Ireland. Its purpose is to accurately identify the individual enabling health and social care to be delivered to the right patient in the right place at the right time. A health service provider identifier is a unique, non-transferable, life-time number assigned by the Minister to a person who provides a health service. Its purpose is to identify the individual as one and the same person and to allow attachment to them of other information such as name, address, contact details. A health care organisation identifier is a unique, non-transferable number assigned to health care organisations in Ireland. It will allow for attachment to a database to their identity, contact details and operational sites.

Currently, there are no national systems in Ireland for patient identifiers and provider identification in health care is not universal, in that some professions can be traced back to their professional registers while for others no register exists. Health information is held in multiple disparate health information systems, including GP practices, hospitals and so on, with each having its own system, either paper based or electronic. Related to the lack of a common identification system for individuals is the absence of adequate information technology which the Department of Health has said means patient records cannot be accessed in a timely fashion and, therefore, points of medical contact become islands of information increasing the risk for patients.

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