Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

289. To ask the Minister for Health the number of persons who have been issued with a unique health identifier since the Health Identifiers Act 2014 was passed, by local health office, in tabular form. [3880/16]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Health Identifiers Act 2014 provides for the establishment of systems of identifiers for clients and for healthcare providers, both professionals and organisations. The relevant provisions to establish the Individual Health Identifier Register were commenced in September 2015 to allow for Individual Health Identifiers to be assigned to individuals and to establish the related governance structure. Operational responsibility for the identifier system has been delegated to the HSE as provided for in the Act. The data to establish the register will leverage the work that is ongoing in supporting the Public Services Card initiative by the Department of Social Protection.

The HSE are about to launch a public consultation on the privacy impact of the proposed approach to assigning the identifiers. A Privacy Impact Assessment or PIA involves examining the privacy implications of a project to ensure that personal information is protected and that the project complies with all relevant legislation. It is envisaged that where the PIA identifies privacy risks it proposes safeguards that should reduce these risks without impacting on what the project is aiming to achieve. Late last year HSE successfully developed a technical proof of conceptfor the assigning of the individual health identifiers to its clients and building the register. The technical and operational environment for managing the identifier system is currently being finalised. Following the proof of concept it is envisaged that the system will migrate to a full production environment by the end of Q2 2016. When the system is fully operational it will allow the health services to positively identify patients and clients thus underpinning better patient safety.

It is important to point out that the roll out of a system of health identifiers for patients, professionals and organisations has no linkage with any eligibility for any type of health service or benefit. It is primarily a patient safety initiative and a fundamental building block for eHealth and ICT developments into the future.