Ireland with a substantial economic opportunity, with the ICT industry at the heart of bringing renewed prosperity to the country’s rather deflated economy. He calls this the eHealth ecosystem, an approach that involves the link between eHealth transforming healthcare as well as how the development of eHealth solutions can be a stimulus for economic growth. But Conlon is nothing if not pragmatic and he fully
understands that nothing much will happen in terms of reform without direction and a clear and effective strategic roadmap. “Before any significant development can take place, people are waiting for a signal from my own department,” he says and this is why he is currently drafting an eHealth strategy that will map out what basic building blocks that he believes are needed. “We have a Health Information bill that will set a
regulatory framework for a lot of what we want to do,” he continues, “and that will highlight the importance of having organisational, professional and patient identifiers in place to guide the strategy. We hope to have this bill published before the end of this year and we hope that by the end of June we will have our eHealth strategy out and this will be a rallying cry for the sector.” Conlon believes this will be a rallying cry for the
whole economy and stresses that the eHealth strategy will make clear that these opportunities are not just there for the healthcare system but for the economy as a whole – the ecosystem approach. “Ireland is a major player in both the pharmaceutical and ICT industries,” he points out. “We have all the major players based in Ireland so we see that if we do this right we can place eHealth on the level of development that other ICT projects currently enjoy.” Of course, this is not a particularly new viewpoint
and there are many examples around the world where countries are much further along this reform process and already enjoying the ecosystem successes Conlon is hoping Ireland can. So why is Ireland not further along in this development process? “I don’t think we ever got the traction with the
initial investment,” he explains. “As I understand it, most of the advanced healthcare systems around the world are investing between two and three per cent of their overall health spend on ICT. In Ireland the figure is less than one per cent, at around 0.85 per cent. We just haven’t got the base figure in place. “Having said that, we have many islands of
excellence and some very good adopters of ICT systems, but that fact that we lack a legislative framework has created a lot of doubt about what you could and couldn’t do in the health information environment. I also think that another obstacle was a feeling in some quarters that some ICT projects in the Government sector did not deliver as expected. “These created a difficult PR environment for
government IT,” Conlon admits. “By and large, there has been a lack of understanding
of what the opportunities are in terms of ICT and health up to now, which has slowed down any
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developments. We are currently undergoing a major reform of the health system so we now have the opportunity to build into that reform the ICT enablers that we need. In fact, you could argue that we can’t do the reform until we have the ICT to back it up.” Conlon is clear about the health model he sees Ireland
moving towards, one from a model that is a mix of the public and private sectors to a model where money follows the patients and there is universal health insurance. It is ambitious and will have far- reaching impact as this Dutch-style model will mean that every institution and organisation involved
in healthcare
will need to do their business in a different way - business processes will need to be examined to embed the new processes
and new
ways of supporting those processes with ICT will need to be developed. “This is an opportune moment for
this because a lot of what we are talking about in terms of the treatment of patients in this kind of way has now become mainstream in much of Europe, so it is not as if we are being hugely adventurous,” says Conlon. “It’s just that the time is right to be doing this now and it’s opportune because of the reforms taking place anyway. “I think the main challenge for us now is getting the
infrastructure right and then the support systems in place as well as GPs on board and our hospitals up to specification,” he concludes.
Kevin Conlon
Conlon is firmly of the mind that all health
stakeholders will need to be involved in his ICT- backed health reforms, and is happy to look at examples around the world where this approach has been successful, again citing how viewing health as an ecosystem can stimulate this involvement at all levels. “We are interested in areas where they have
developed an ecosystem approach to eHealth as they have done in Catelonia, Finland, Manchester in the UK and in Northern Ireland,” he says. “What’s attractive about this is that it engages with
all the stakeholders involved in healthcare and not just the clinical side – it’s industry, patients, academics and the public sector and it creates a
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