Last month, we completed a public consultation on draft recommendations for implementing a national electronic patient summary in Ireland – receiving over 50 submissions. We are currently working to finalise these recommendations.
A national electronic patient summary is a summary of the essential clinical information needed to treat a patient safely during an episode of unscheduled care—for example, at an out-of-hours GP clinic or a hospital emergency department at the weekend. The clinical information includes details of:
- the patient’s name, address, and other demographic information,
- any conditions the patient has,
- any medications prescribed to the patient,
- any procedures that the patient has had in the last six months,
- any allergies that the patient has been diagnosed with, and
- any vaccinations that the patient has had.
The recommendations are the latest in a series of steps towards implementing a national electronic patient summary in Ireland.
In 2018 and 2019, we worked with a range of interested organisations and parties, including patients and their carers, and the general public, to develop the national standard, which defines when the national electronic patient summary will be used and what information it should contain. Find out more here.
Following this, we started to develop a set of draft recommendations for the Minister for Health on how to set up the national strategic programme to introduce the national electronic patient summary in Ireland. Patient summaries have been in use for almost a decade in other countries, such as England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. The first step in the development process was to review how they were implemented in nine other countries and jurisdictions to identify the best practices and understand the lessons that had been learned. After feedback from a specially convened expert Advisory Group, we also reviewed the current eHealth landscape in Ireland to understand the programmes, projects, and services that would have an impact on, or be influenced by, the implementation of the national electronic patient summary.
Following input from our advisory group, the draft recommendations on areas such as policy and legislation, programme governance structures, and the engagement of broad range of stakeholder groups were made available for a six-week public consultation. Focus groups and interviews were also held providing a rich source of thoughtful comment.
We are taking all feedback into consideration and amending the draft recommendations accordingly. The next step is to circulate the draft recommendations to the advisory group for discussion at a meeting on 19 October.
After the meeting, the final recommendations will be subject to the approval of the HIQA Executive Management Team and the HIQA Board, before being submitted to the Minister for Health. The recommendations will then be published on www.hiqa.ie, accompanied by explanatory materials, including a frequently asked questions (FAQ) document.