Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 7 July 2020
706. Deputy Louise O'Reilly asked the Minister for Health if he will address a matter regarding information technology equipment in the health service (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13925/20]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe Department of Health, has increased capital investment in ICT from €55 million in 2017 to €95 million in 2020 with a further planned increase to €120 million in 2021. This is intended to support reform of the health service by facilitating the deployment of more clinical and operational systems and implementation of key eHealth initiatives. Investment in underlying technical infrastructure specifically has benefited from this increased level of investment. Whilst there is clearly further work to be done, that work is ongoing and significant progress has been made to date. Indeed, without this commitment, the health service would not have been able to respond to the recent pandemic in the way that it did. By way of simple illustrations, over the past 5 years the HSE has had a rolling programme in place to replace every desktop and laptop computer in the health system, has replaced or upgraded WAN and LAN networks, replaced phone systems on major (and many smaller) sites, has virtualised its server infrastructure, deployed a new national data centre and increased storage capacity and performance on all sites. Wireless LAN is available in 33 out of the 49 voluntary and statutory hospitals, with a national enterprise procurement at planning stage. Whilst not all sites can be deployed at the same time, there are existing procurement frameworks in place so that hospitals and non-acute sites can have needs assessed. These frameworks facilitate the development of technical specifications for WiFi deployments, so that they can be submitted for capital funding and procurement. The investment in this area is ongoing and the programme is supported by the Department of Health.
In relation to multi-disciplinary conferences, teleconferencing and telehealth, one of the features of Covid-19 has been the significantly increased adoption of video as a means of communicating with each other during the pandemic> The health system has seen particular benefits with the adoption of this technology as we seek to enable social distancing a keep patients, clinicians and healthcare workers safe. The HSE has deployed multiple technologies at scale and at pace. Microsoft Teams has been deployed for staff, Attend Anywhere has been made available for clinical settings such as outpatient departments, and GPs have been able to avail of multiple choices.
In relation to the funding of computers through CME, HSE IT security policies are very specific in relation to connection of devices such as laptops that are not owned and managed by the health service, to the health network. The preferred arrangement is that if a laptop is required, this be funded, deployed and managed through local IT operations. Laptops deployed in this way will support remote working and multi-disciplinary team working.
