The Information Society Commission of Ireland, an independent advisory board set up to investigate and report on IT matters for the Irish government, has said that investment in Irish healthcare IT is lacking and that Ireland needs to increase spending in the sector to improve healthcare. A new report, entitled, ‘An eHealthy State? — An assessment of the adoption of eHealth in Ireland’, makes a number of recommendations for action by the Irish government, including that money should be ‘ring-fenced’ by the government for implementation of e-health projects, that systems should be fully integrated in all aspects of care, and that the government should work to become the European hub for e-health excellence. Tom Kitt, Minister of State with responsibility for the Information Society, said at the launch of the report: “There are significant and ambitious reforms being implemented in the Irish healthcare system – in hospitals, primary care, management and administration. E-health can play a key role in these reforms, facilitating the integration of healthcare services so that we become centred on citizens interacting with a series of interconnecting services, rather than individual transactions with many separate organisations." The reasons the report gives for what it calls current underinvestment in healthcare IT in Ireland include what it sees as a common perception that IT is a poor investment in patient care, a lack of take-up of funding that is available, among some health professionals such as GPs, and what the ISC calls “public pressure to invest in physical rather than technical infrastructure". The report points at work being done in the UK in the NPfIT, pointing out how online services such as NHS Direct are “empowering" patients. It also cites the Dr Foster website as an example of a good independent information health portal. “In short, the barriers are gone, the standards are there and the benefits are proven. All that is required now is implementation," says the report. Dr Chris Coughlan, chair of the ISC’s e-health steering group, said: “By delivering greater efficiencies, e-health systems are often self-financing, with the patient remaining the core focus of any systems designed."
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