David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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106. To ask the Minister for Health his plans for electronic health records; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [52303/22]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy for his question. Considerable progress has been made on Electronic Health Records (EHR) systems for the New Children’s Hospital, for Community Based Care and other healthcare settings.

Following an open procurement process and Government decision, Children’s Hospital Ireland have signed contracts with EPIC for the provision of an EHR System for the New Children’s Hospital. This will be the most extensive EHR deployment in Ireland and builds upon the success of EHR programmes at our largest maternity hospitals and St James’s Hospital.

The planned expansion of the use of electronic health records to maternity hospital sites at Limerick and the Coombe, in 2022 and 2023 will result in 70% of babies born in Ireland being assigned an electronic health record at birth. Contracts for clinical management systems capable of generating EHRs have also been signed for the National Rehabilitation Hospital and the National Forensics Hospitals.

For community-based EHRs, a formal market soundings exercise was completed in Q1 2022 and a business case is under development. Separately almost all GPs practices use accredited GP Practice Systems capable of generating EHRs for patients.

My Department is also giving consideration to a strategic approach to widening the roll-out of EHRs, interoperability of existing systems and market technology and systems advances in conjunction with the establishment of Regional Health Areas.