Government to approve €86m electronic records system at new national children's hospital

National Childrens Hospital. Picture: Sasko Lazarov/RollingNews.ie

The Government is set to approve a €86 million electronic records system at the new national children’s hospital.

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly will seek Cabinet approval for a new Electronic Health Records (EHR) system at the new children’s hospital when it meets on Monday.

Ministers will be told this will be the largest deployment of EHR in Ireland’s healthcare to date and will result in the NCH being a truly digital hospital.

The provision of electronic health records for all the Irish population across healthcare is the ultimate ambition as part of Sláintecare, the memorandum to Cabinet states.

An open procurement process was initiated in 2019, which concluded in 2021 with a preferred vendor identified.

The preferred vendor has a strong track record of successful delivery of HER systems around the world, ministers will be told.

The procurement process was executed by Children’s Health Ireland (CHI), overseen by the HSE, and subjected to independent external audit.

“It’s expected that the total implementation costs for the EHR programme will be €86m with a compliant business case underpinning the investment,” the memorandum states.

It will deliver clear benefits to patients and staff of CHI and the Department of Health considers it to be value for money, Mr Donnelly said.

Meanwhile, Ireland is to get more vaccines for use against ‘monkeypox’ the Health Minister will also tell Cabinet colleagues today.

A European Commission procurement under the Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA) will see Ireland get a supply of the modified ‘Vaccinia Ankara’ which is marketed under the name Jynneos.

Ireland has previously purchased a supply of the smallpox vaccine Imvanex for use here.

The National Immunisation Advisory Committee has advised that close contacts of confirmed cases and health workers treating infected persons should be offered a vaccine.