All maternity hospitals in the State will have electronic health records by the end of the year, the head of technology at the Health Service Executive (HSE) has said.
Damien McCallion, chief technology and transformation officer, said five of the six maternity hospitals currently have electronic records, which are seen as a key part of healthcare system reforms.
Electronic records, when fully implemented, will improve patient care and reduce paperwork for staff, allowing them to commit more time caring for patients.
Mr McCallion said just one hospital – the Coombe in Dublin – has yet to be transferred to electronic records, but this will be done this year.
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He said this allows maternity and gynaecology patients in these hospitals to be alerted and have reminders for their appointments on the HSE app.
More than 100,000 people are now using the app, the first version of which was launched in February.
It currently includes medical cards and European health insurance cards, Covid and flu vaccination records, signposting to services and self-care supports, and enables patients to have a list of their current medications.
The second phase of the app is due to be launched this month, which will allow patients view all outpatient hospital appointment types.
“We won’t have all hospitals initially," said Mr McCallion. “Some of our hospitals are really old systems, so some of those are going to take into 2026 to get on to the app, but we’ll gradually have all of the hospital appointments.
“There’s over a million appointments that will go live on the app when we press the ‘go’ button on the next version; our aim is to keep developing capability as we get better systems behind it. We’ll also have breast screening appointments going out on the app.”
The next phase will be about giving information to patients. Mr McCallion said the end goal is for users to be able to interact with the app, allowing them to cancel appointments electronically if they need to do so.
He was speaking at the HSE’s annual integrated care conference at the Convention Centre in Dublin on Thursday.
Speaking at the same event, Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill said there was “huge frustration, correctly, in the way in which scoliosis and spinal services have been managed” in Children’s Health Ireland.
She said this related to “the allocation of waiting lists, how you’re assigned to a particular consultant, how the care is managed, how people are communicated with, cancelling of appointments without an explanation, the responsiveness, and to be able to have a proper dialogue all the time.”
