Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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330. To ask the Minister for Health the reforms she plans to put in place to improve Irish citizens’ access to their health records digitally; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [25041/25]

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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‘Digital for Care: A Digital Health Framework for Ireland 2024-2030’ (Department of Health, published in May 2024) reflects the changing landscape of health and social care in Ireland, and sets out a roadmap to digitally transform health services and improve Irish citizens’ access to their health records digitally.

The Programme for Government underlines the ambition set out in Digital for Care, through its commitment to 'continue to work towards the full digitisation of Irish healthcare records and information systems'.

Digital for Care describes a stepwise approach towards the delivery of digital health records for all and the ambition for all citizen to have access to their own digital health record. In relation to digital health records specifically, Digital for Care describes three key initiatives that need to proceed concurrently to enable digital health records for all. These are (a) a National Health App (patient app), (b) a National Shared Care Record and (c) the procurement, configuration deployment of an Enterprise Electronic Health Record system that spans both acute and community healthcare settings. With the necessary investment, we can make significant, visible, and tangible progress towards this objective.

The HSE Health App was launched on 25th February 2025. This is first step to enabling patient access to their own health information online. Like all Apps, regular releases are planned (typically once per quarter) to further expand citizen access to their data, empower patients and expand the number of features and health information available to them.

The National Shared Care Record (NSCR) is being developed alongside the HSE Health App. The NSCR will combine data from multiple source systems (e.g. GP practice systems, medication management systems, hospital administration systems, laboratory systems, diagnostic imaging systems, referrals, discharge reports etc). The unique feature of a national shared care record is that it combines data from the acute and community healthcare setting – including relevant hospital, community care, GP and community pharmacy data – to deliver a concise summary of patient information and present it as one unified digital health record. This is a multiannual programme that will include more data as this becomes available. The technology platform to deliver the NSCR has already been procured by the HSE and the first release of the NSCR is scheduled for the end of 2025. Initially this will be to a limited number of healthcare professionals and contain a limited dataset at this stage, but will expand over time through regular releases in 2026 and 2027.

As both the Patient App and the National Shared Care Record can only present data that is available, there is also a need to invest in the 3rd initiative – the enterprise Electronic Health Record (EHR) system . This will help us address this deficiency and enable digitisation of the health system and delivery of complete and comprehensive digital heath records. The EHR system will enable recording of clinical data, consistently, in the acute and community sector.

The HSE has developed a preliminary business case for the HER which has just been formally submitted to the Department of Health. The scale of this programme is such that it is likely to require detailed assessment and consideration in line with DPENDR Infrastructure Guidelines (IG), to ensure alignment with the Public Spending Code (PSC). Large scale IT enabled projects in the public sector are also subject to external peer review in line with DPENDR Circular 14/2021.

Ultimately this will result in a complete digital health record of a patient’s health journey, recorded by healthcare professionals across all health and social care settings, while also automating the patient pathway in the various care setting e.g. automatic referrals, ordering diagnostics, lab tests, etc – but the path ahead is clear and we intend to pursue it.

The EU Digital Decade 2030 sets an ambition for all EU citizens to have access to their digital health record by the end of this decade. To date, Ireland lags other member states, but we have made steady progress in the past two years. Significant effort and investment will be required to meet this target by 2030 but, with the appropriate investment and support, Ireland can achieve it.

Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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331. To ask the Minister for Health the extent to which the health system continues to operate on paper records rather than digital records; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [25042/25]

Charles Ward (Donegal, 100% Redress Party)
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332. To ask the Minister for Health the extent to which the health system continues to operate on paper records rather than digital records; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [25043/25]

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 331 and 332 together.

Ireland is still too dependent on paper records for delivery of care in Ireland. Paper records are a barrier to information sharing between healthcare professions who, collectively, are responsible for delivering the best possible treatment and care outcomes for patients.

Sláintecare is based on the principle that more care should be delivered in the community, closer to peoples homes. As patients transition across healthcare settings eg admission to hospital, discharge to the community, transfer between hospitals - or where they receive care from a team of healthcare professionals (eg multi disciplinary teams within hospitals - or different health and social care professionals in community) it is essential that 'data follows the patient'. The inability to do this well today, limits the extent to which we can delivery continuity of care and in practice, transition to a fully integrated model of care, as envisioned under Sláintecare. Sharing of patient data across healthcare settings is very difficult as long as we rely on paper health records. Digital can solve this problem.

Whilst the health system has made progress in reducing its reliance on paper systems in some instances, there is still much to do before we can deliver 'digital health records for all'. Examples of good progress to date include universal deployment of Patient Admin Systems (PAS) in all hospitals, EHR systems that are deployed on a number of sites, with a very significant programme underway at the new children's hospital. The national imaging system NIMIS, the national Lab system as well as many departmental systems that are digital such as those deployed in hospital ICUs – are all examples of projects that have successfully migrated from paper.

Digital for Care: A Digital Health Framework for Ireland 2024-2030 (Department of Health, published in May 2024) reflects the changing landscape of health and social care in Ireland and sets out a roadmap to digitally transform health services and improve Irish citizens’ access to their health records digitally.

The Programme for Government both underlines and commits to the ambition set out in the Framework to continue to work towards the full digitisation of Irish healthcare records and information systems, and to increase funding levels, through the National Development Plan (NDP) Review, to achieve this.

Ireland needs one digital health record for every citizen that can be accessed by health professionals across the service. The path to a one digital health record that covers the full health journey of every person living in Ireland consists of three key initiatives proceeding concurrently and in parallel to achieve this. Through the delivery of the Health App, National Shared Care Record and procurement of an Enterprise Electronic Health Record system that spans acute and community healthcare sectors, with the necessary investment, we can make significant, visible, and tangible progress towards this objective.