Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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359. To ask the Minister for Health the total allocation and spend on e-Health since 2018, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20081/23]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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As the HSE deliver all digital health solutions, my Department incurs no direct expenditure on eHealth but does provide the funding for eHealth via the ICT capital section of the annual service plan to the HSE, who have operational responsibility for delivery of eHealth and ICT solutions and services across the health service. This remit includes the delivery of eHealth programmes and the refreshing of ICT technology and infrastructure (to maintain performance and protect from cyber-attack) to support delivery of services, patient care and Sláintecare reform.

The HSE leveraged its ICT capabilities extensively during the pandemic and this proved to be criticalas the health service responded to the evolving situation. In the early days of Covid, ICT was used to fit out the assessment centres, provide electronic referrals for covid testing and deliver a national trace and test system to support the public health teams efforts to contain the spread of Covid. A combination of voted allocations of ICT capital and Covid specific money funded important work on ICT infrastructure and equipment, the COVID Care Tracker (track and trace system), the Covid Tracker APP, telehealth consultations, online referrals for Covid Testing, electronic transfer of prescriptions in the community for all GP surgeries and pharmacies, the Covid Data Lake, business intelligence and data analytics capabilities that supported the collection and reporting of Covid statistics and ultimately the development and delivery of the new national Covid vaccination system.

The attached table provided details the allocation of capital ICT funding over the period requested, provided under the Vote as well as under additional allocations provided for as part of Covid once off funding, along with the actual expenditure associated with these allocations.

Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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As this is an operational matter, I have asked the Health Service Executive to respond to the deputy directly, as soon as possible.