The release of the Digital for Care: Digital Health Framework for Ireland was Pulse+IT’s top story for the 2024 year in digital health.
The landmark strategy, released in May, prioritises allowing health service users to access their own digital health record, providing healthcare professionals with comprehensive information about their patients in digital form in real-time, delivering patient care close to home, and facilitating greater efficiency and reduced costs for the system.
The implementation plan for the strategy was also a popular story, detailing as it did many big plans, big solutions and big innovations, setting out close to 1000 individual digital health projects within 48 initiatives.
Virtual wards were also a revelation this year, with the Department of Health announcing plans to have virtual wards available at all 40 acute hospitals in Ireland within the next 18 months.
The first two virtual wards were opened in Dublin and Limerick in May, with UK-headquartered Swedish remote patient monitoring software developer Doccla providing the technology platform.
Northern Ireland’s roll out of the Epic electronic health record was closely watched in the Republic, where the much-anticipated – and delayed – national children’s hospital will also use the technology.
After a delay of almost five, Beaumont Hospital went live with the new national laboratory information management system (MedLIS), which uses Oracle Health (Cerner) technology. Electronic GP ordering is also live in Navan, and the other regions providing pathology services will go live over the next few years.
Irish start-up Spryt is partnering with two NHS organisations to pilot a new appointment scheduling system that uses WhatsApp combined with AI, the first time they have been approved by the NHS for appointment scheduling. Spryt is also in talks with the HSE to pilot the system in Ireland.
A researcher at the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for AI-Driven Digital Content Technology developed a new tool to help clinicians evaluate the trustworthiness of patient-generated health data (PGHD) in their decision-making processes.
Developing the national shared care record platform will be a priority for the Department of Health over the next six to 12 months, according to the Secretary General, Robert Watt, with the procurement process already underway for the platform and the system expected to be operational next year.
And finally, Ireland’s new Health Information Bill, which will be reintroduced to the 34th Dáil when it sits, includes new rules that will mean all healthcare providers will have a duty to share patient health data and will establish a right for patients to easily move their health information between providers.
The Hot Top 10
1. Digital for Care: Ireland’s national digital health strategy released
2. Ambitious plans for virtual wards across Ireland using Doccla RPM platform
3. Big plans, big solutions, big innovations: HSE to release implementation plan
4. All eyes on Belfast as Epic encompass system goes live
5. First MedLIS site goes live at Beaumont Hospital
6. Irish start-up scores NHS first with WhatsApp+AI appointment system
7. Tool to assess trustworthiness of patient-generated health data
8. Sneak peek at digital health roadmap shows 2025 deadline for IHI, shortlist of EHR vendors
9. Hopes for Ireland’s shared care record platform to be operational in 2025: Watt
10. Doctors and hospitals face legal ‘duty to share’ health data
