The procurement process for Ireland’s One Health electronic health record (EHR) will not be completed for another 18 months, according to the Chief Technology and Transformation Officer (CTO) of the HSE.
Speaking at the HSE Integrated Healthcare Conference last week, Damien McCallion said the final four bidders have been selected.
“The procurement will take about 18 months to finish out. Then we’re straight into a national build and straight into a rollout in Dublin North-East,” Mr McCallion said.
At that point, he said, the HSE will be calling on staff to participate in the selection process in terms of standardisation, identifying best practice and developing clinical pathways.
“We’ve talked to people all over the world and the one key thing that’s critical for success is clinical leadership and buy-in from clinical staff to design optimised workflows and pathways,” he said.
The One Health record is expected to go live in Dublin North-East in 2029, with national completion now expected to be close to 2032.
Mr McCallion acknowledged that there will be significant changes and challenges ahead as the Digital for Care Strategy is rolled out, and he warned that people must be prepared to compromise.
“If we have Professor X in Cork and Professor Y in the Mater and Professors Z in Galway and they can’t agree on a cardiology pathway, this won’t work. We can’t configure solutions for every little idiosyncrasy in the country.
“Of course, there will be flexibility, but we’ve got to try and look at how we do things. How we standardise it? How do we code things?” he said.
“A lot of these systems will have challenges and people will want different capabilities. We’re asking people to look at it [as a whole]. We have to modernise. We have to get to a certain level.”
Mr McCallion spoke directly to the HSE staff attending the conference, noting “I cannot emphasise enough to you, as the senior leaders in the health service, you will all have a role. You will need to be able to bring people with you in your areas.”
“This is going to be complicated, but we need you. The benefit that we’ll get for patients and staff in terms of what we’ll see out the other end of this, is phenomenal. We’ve seen it in other countries. Many of you have worked in those countries.
“This is the window we’ve got to drive it on. You have to drive it out in your own regions. We will work with you on that, both nationally, regionally and locally, at hospital and community care level, and I believe we can really make a difference in the health system with this investment,” he said.
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