David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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249. To ask the Minister for Health the advancements made in eHealth; the funding that has been made available to ensure the roll out of the electronic health record system; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17843/20]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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There have been notable advances made in eHealth in recent times. As part of the COVID-19 emergency response eHealth technologies were deployed at pace and scale to support healthcare workers. The Contact Tracing App was developed to complement manual contact tracing, informing of the spread of Covid-19 symptoms and providing a trusted source of news, information and guidance. Telehealth solutions have also been deployed and have emerged as a significant eHealth response to Covid-19. Current digital integration and existing digital infrastructure are at various states of maturity across the healthcare system and a national programme of work continues to be in place by the HSE to upgrade and install ICT infrastructure across many health settings.

My Department fully supports the implementation of the eHealth Strategy and the cross-party Sláintecare eHealth deliverables including the Electronic Health Record. Plans to deploy an acute EHR initially into the New Children's Hospital are progressing and the procurement exercise for that is currently underway. The Electronic Health Record is a long-term project subject to continuing government approval for further deployments into additional healthcare settings.

In relation to funding, the overall capital investment in eHealth and ICT has increased by €10m to €95m in 2020 and the projected investment for 2021 is €120m.