Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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197. To ask the Minister for Health the cost of rolling out the eHealth electronic health record over the periods of two months, 18 months, 24 months, 30 months and 36 months, respectively [26063/17]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The HSE have developed a business case for the implementation of an electronic health care record (EHR) in Ireland. The business case sets out a number of investment scenarios including timescales for implementation and roll out. In the business case, a 5 year and a 9 year technology investment programme is developed but there is flexibility within its scope to stretch out timescales further. The total of all estimated costs including business change elements for a 5 year implementation are in the range of €647m to €875m respectively and the 9 year figure is between €609m-€824m. The five year scenario could be considered a ‘fast track’ approach. These costs would only arise if full implementation in all sites were to take place. The costs have been estimated based on market engagements in 2015/16.

A technology and business change project of this scale and scope has a number of inherent risks. Realistic timescales are important to ensure that the adoption of both the technology and the business change required by front line staff can be absorbed and managed in a coherent way. In addition to resourcing the EHR project with substantial manpower and financial resources, experience from other countries demonstrates that the vendor markets supplying many of these services needs to be carefully managed in terms of capacity and capability to deliver working tailored solutions in a satisfactory manner. My Department is currently evaluating how this might be progressed particularly in delivering an EHR in the context of the work being planned for the New Children’s Hospital which aspires to be the first digital hospital facility in the country. In developing a national electronic health record programme we must build on the progress to date in ICT deployment but also on the lessons learnt from other jurisdictions in developing an optimum solution for Ireland. The business case highlights a number of optional timescales and investment approaches which will need to be considered. The scale of the task in implementing an electronic health record programme is very large and requires a complex procurement and approval process. It is a five to ten year programme of work depending on the scale of resources deployed.