Wheeling in the changes: tech that’s just what the doctor ordered

Eva Short examines technologies that are helping improve healthcare in Ireland

Last year’s cyber attack on the HSE strengthened, as opposed to weakened, the case for patient record digitisation

The field of medicine, for all the cutting-edge technology that is applied to patient care, has a tendency towards anachronism that borders on folksy. Many doctors still use pagers while on call, or to be updated on their patients’ conditions; and until about a decade ago, most Irish hospitals still kept their records on paper.

Large, unwieldy files were stacked high at ward workstations and were, as required, pushed around the hospital on carts to ...