The National ICT Directorate within the HSE is responsible for the delivery of ICT enabled projects and services. The ICT directorate is a support function that works in partnership with all directorates within the HSE to ensure that the services and projects pursued are directly aligned with service needs. At corporate level, the directorate is responsible for the development and implementation of the ICT Strategy.
The capital allocation for ICT spending in the HSE for 2012 is €40m. ICT capital spending is project based and is operated, by way multi-annual budgets due to the complexity and scale of most projects. The breakdown of the planned spending between the various business sectors is set out in the table below:
|
Project Type
|
No. of Projects
|
Investment
|
|
Hospital Clinical
|
36
|
€11,213,675
|
|
ICT Technical Infrastructure
|
22
|
€8,431,869
|
|
CoreHospital-iSoft (PAS)
|
6
|
€8,138,013
|
|
Pre Hospital Emergency Care
|
6
|
€4,570,624
|
|
Corporate Systems
|
12
|
€1,707,080
|
|
Community Clinical
|
11
|
€1,259,130
|
|
New Building/Refurbishment — Fit Out
|
1
|
€950,000
|
|
Core Hospital-iSoft (Order Comms)
|
1
|
€550,000
|
|
Minor/Miscellaneous Capital Projects
|
97
|
€3,121,963
|
|
Totals
|
192
|
€39,942,355
|
From an initial inspection of the list of projects that constitute the planned areas for investment, many of the items listed are clinical systems, deployed in support of hospitals and primary care facilities, and should not be affected in terms of any new arrangements.
Other projects recently approved, such as the insurance claims system will support a ‘money follows the patient' environment and are already aligned with the Government's agenda. As the Deputy is aware, since the moratorium in March 2009, a reduction in numbers of over 7,000 has been sustainable, in part, due to process improvements including ICT supports.
As part of a review of the HSE ICT strategy, my Department will be examining all currently sanctioned projects to determine how they are affected by the administrative changes envisaged as part of the Government's reform agenda. Finally, it should be noted that approval for ICT expenditure within the HSE is subject to external approval by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, in accordance with Department of Finance Circulars 02/09 and 02/11 and the Department of Health.
