Health

‘No financial allocation’ for e-health means system to be paper-based until 2025

TDs told high cost of rolling out electronic health records means HSE does not have an approved business case

Green TD Neasa Hourigan was told it might be 2025 before electronic healthcare systems were established at the children’s hospital. Picture: Collins

There is still “no financial allocation” for a national rollout of digital health records, politicians have been told, meaning the HSE is likely to be using paper systems until at least 2025.

At a meeting of the public accounts committee (PAC) this morning, officials from the Department of Health said that implementing electronic healthcare records (EHR) across the country would cost more than €1 billion if carried out nationally.

The national children’s hospital has completed ...