Access to Information and Health Identity Services

(A2i-HIDs) 2023 Achievements

Introduction:

With Covid fading in the ‘rear view mirror’ at the start of 2023 energised by all that we had delivered, A2i-HIDs’ ambition for the new year was to maintain the momentum and learnings gained during the pandemic and to strive forward to design and deliver the technology to transform how we enable Patients and Clinicians to access the health information they need.

HealthLink

HealthLink is used by over 6,500 clinicians in all health and social care settings to securely communicate electronic health information. To date the service has delivered over 270 million healthcare messages such as Laboratory and Radiology results, electronic referrals, discharge notifications and vaccinations. 

Having delivered over 11 million electronic referrals to date, in 2023, A2i-HIDs delivered new electronic referrals for ECC (Enhanced Community Care Services), Community Health Networks, Older Persons, Chronic Disease Management, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAHMS) and for Cancer and Screening services such as Breast Check.

In 2023, A2i-HIDs, working with the MedLIS (National Laboratory) and GP vendors, designed and delivered the National GP Lab eOrdering solution currently being used by 4 GP practices in the region of Our Lady’s Hospital and in  2024 GP Lab eOrdering will be rolled out to University Hospital Waterford, University Hospital Galway and for MedLIS sites including Beaumont Hospital.                                                                                                                                                      

Healthmail

Healthmail is a secure encrypted email service for the transmission of personal and health information between clinicians, health organisations and agencies.  It is now being used by over 9,000 users, 165 health organisations and agencies, 6000 GP and Pharmacy Practices sending approximately 2.2 million emails per month including ePrescriptions.

This year we commenced the roll-out of MFA (multi-factor authentication) to secure health organisations using the service with over 750 accounts already enabled.

A2i-HIDs is responsible for co-ordinating all HSE-eHealth changes to GP Practice Management Systems. In 2023 engagement started with GP Out-of-Hour's system vendors and Pharmacy system vendors with an eye to ensuring that these systems will be able to support the IHI and requirements for ePrescribing in particular. 

Health Provider Platform

The Health Provider Platform (HPP) developed by A2IHIDs for Pharmacies and GPs to record vaccinations for Covid (PharmaVax & GPVax) has been extended for flu. In 2023, A2i-HIDs developed CommunityVax for private hospitals and voluntary agencies. These systems were extensively used for the 2023 Spring/Summer and Autumn/Winter Covid and Flu campaigns.

MyHealth

The MyHealth Digital Front Door Portal was developed by A2i-HIDs in Covid allow members of the public request Covid Antigen Test Kits and Covid PCR Test appointment. The MyHealth portal has now been extended to include additional appointments for Flu, HPV and MPox. 

A2I-HIDs have also delivered appointment scheduling for hospital and community services such as the Civil Registration Service (CRS) for members of the public wishing to register birth certificates. 

In 2023, A2i-HIDs developed a payment facility using the MyHealth Digital Front Door Platform for the new National Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS) to provide the public with the ability to ‘Pay a Bill’ on-line.

The MyHealth Digital Front Door Portal has received over 1.1 million service requests, is available 24 hours a day and has never required any downtime.

Individual Health Identifier(IHI)

2023 was a phenomenal year for the roll-out of the Individual Health Identifier(IHI) to health systems post suspension of roll-out during Covid. Over 5.7 million people now have their IHI recorded on either their GP or Hospital records or both.

A2i-HIDs worked with our eHealth IPMS team colleagues and the Health Identifier Service to deliver over 12 million IHIs to 12 of our Acute and Maternity hospitals and 75 of their downstream systems. 

The IHI is live in all GP Practice Management Systems, with the now matched with over 90% of GP patient records. The Health Identifier Index is responding to approximately 775k requests per day for the IHI. 

2024 will see more systems such as the National Cancer Register and the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) waiting list system using the IHI and the IHI will be used for identifying records for the MyHealth App.

Looking forward to 2024

The A2i-HIDs Team’s main focus for the New Year will be on enabling the delivery of the priority HSE-eHealth projects goals for the 2024 digital health strategic implementation plan. In particular, 2024 will see us working towards enabling the MyHealth Patient App and ultimately, the Patients’ National Shared Health Care Record.

For more information view the A2i-HIDs webpage here.