Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael)
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Will the Minister outline whether the Department has mapped out a pathway for the role technology can play in keeping patients healthy and in the planned statutory homecare scheme and the status of the roll-out of the planned actions?

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy for the question. Our overall ambition in government is to use technology to the fullest extent possible to keep everybody well and provide them with support in their homes where they need healthcare support. Our ambition is also to utilise it fully in community and hospital care. Several really good programmes are in place, the chronic disease management, CDM, programme being one of the best examples. Technology is playing a role in supporting people with chronic diseases at home through the CDM programme.

On homecare specifically, we have deployed the interRAI system, in respect of which the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, has had a leading role. Its purpose is to ensure, for the first time, consistency and transparency in the assessment of needs right across the country. Currently, there can be variations from place to place.

We are also running two programmes to trial the use of digital supportive technologies to enable increased service user independence and enhance homecare. This is a bit of a mouthful but essentially it means helping people to stay healthy at home. It includes increased independence and enhanced homecare for older people. It is particularly important during the development of the statutory homecare scheme, on which the Minister of State is leading, so people have the choice to ensure the service is designed and optimised for them by adopting enabling technologies.

In addition, as the Deputy will be aware, we are procuring an IT system for home support. It will facilitate and manage the application process from receipt of an application to a decision on service entitlement and make it easier for people to apply online. It is to make it increasingly easy for people to interact with the services.

Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael)
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I very much appreciate that work is being done in this area but I am just wondering about the timeframe for roll-out. In a discussion on an earlier question, I mentioned the growth of the older population and the need to fast-track new ways of managing both homecare and long-term care in nursing homes. I am not sure whether there has been any co-ordination between the HSE and public and private nursing homes regarding computerisation. Computerisation means that if somebody ends up in hospital, a clear file setting out the level of care he or she is receiving and the medication he or she is on can be easily accessed.

This week, I was talking to a general doctor who works in a Dublin hospital. Bearing in mind that we have been talking about additional hospital staff, including nurses and doctors, he spends 50% of his time trying to track down notes and scans. If they were all computerised, that would not happen.

Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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I wish to comment on computerisation, especially regarding home supports. There is currently a split in that the 22 million home support hours last year were delivered between private, public and voluntary services. Approximately 55% of all the home support last year was delivered by private sector services, which all use IT to deliver their supports. Unfortunately, the HSE is lagging but we are trying to address this.

I also want to talk to the Deputy about a pilot project we are now running in CHO 5 with HaloCare. We are running it with more than 200 recipients of homecare. We are trying to support these people, especially those with dementia, to live in their own homes for as long as possible. For example, where a person with dementia opens the door on hearing the doorbell but does not know the person who rang it, the call is answered by a call centre. We will never replace one-on-one support but there is certainly no reason we cannot enhance what we are doing to support people to live and age well at home.

Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael)
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With regard to this subject, we need to fast-track. The private sector can deliver computerisation far faster. We seem to have a great difficulty in the HSE. Even in maternity care, a totally different area, while four or five maternity hospitals were computerised four or five years ago, the other 14 still have not been. I do not understand why, if we have a system in place in some units, we cannot have it in all of them.

Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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We did actually pilot an IT system for homecare in former CHO area 3, which I think it is now called the Limerick–midwest region. It is hard to keep up with the changes in names. The staff are continuing to use the system. It makes a significant difference because, where a person in receipt of homecare has a fall, has been moved to hospital or has gone on holidays, there can be challenges for those delivering the care. Issues can arise over whether the carer who turns up should be recompensed for doing so and, therefore, there is a considerable challenge, and change cannot happen soon enough. The Minister and I are clear on this and the roll-out of interRAI system. We are currently recruiting interRAI assessors but what we are doing has to be backed up with legislation, which I will bring to the Dáil shortly. It also has to be backed up with a very comprehensive IT system.