HSE Technology and Transformation Committee Meeting Minutes 17 July 2024

Members Present

Tim Hynes (Chair), Brendan Whelan, Martin McCormack, Barry Lowry, Rosaleen Killalea.

Apologies

Derick Mitchell.

HSE Executive Attendance

Fran Thompson (Chief Information Officer), Niamh Drew (Deputy Corporate Secretary), Rebecca Kennedy (Office of the Board).

Joined the Meeting

Stephen Mulvany (CFO - Item 3), Valerie Plant (IFMS Programme Director - Item 3), Julie Bellew (Programme Manager Telehealth - Item 6.1), Meabh Smith (Digital Health Clinical Safety Officer - Item 6.1), Tom Laffan (eHealth Delivery Director for Corporate Services and Integrated Information Service - Item 7), Sheila McGuinness (Director of Access, Acute Operations - Item 7), Joe Ryan (CRO - Item 8).

Minutes reflect the order in which items were considered and are numbered in accordance with the original agenda. All performance/activity data used in this document refers to the latest information available at the time.

The Committee held a private session to review the agenda, the relevant papers and approach to conducting the meeting, noting that the focus of the meeting would be to receive updates on key items and to suggest relevant actions as they became apparent.

2.1 Declarations of Interest

No conflicts of interest were declared.

2.2 Committee Meeting Minutes

The Committee approved the minutes of:

• 15 May 2024

2.3 Matters for Noting

The Chair provided a verbal update on the Prioritisation Framework for Transformation and advised that a substantive update would be provided by the CTTO at the September meeting.

The CFO provided the Committee with the quarterly update on the IFMS project. The update outlined progress against the new IFMS Accelerated Plan which was approved by programme governance on 29 February 2024. The overall status of the IFMS Project is reported as Off-Track against the IFMS Accelerated Plan. The CFO confirmed that that ongoing corrective action is being taken, and progress against the adjusted workplan is being actively managed and monitored on a daily basis to mitigate the impact of these delays on the project and preserve the overall project timeline and go-live dates. The CFO advised the Committee that engagement with the REOs is ongoing and that the response to date has been satisfactory.

The Committee thanked the CFO for the presentation and were fully supportive of work completed to date. It was noted that the next quarterly IFMS update will be submitted to the Committee in November 2024. The Chair agreed to highlight the IFMS programme to the Board at its next meeting.

The Committee discussed the Technology and Transformation section of the BSS (May KPI data) which was prepared for inclusion with the BSS Report for the July Board meeting and circulated to the Committee in advance of the meeting.

The CIO highlighted three areas in particular for discussion with the Committee: the Health App, Shared Care Record (SCR), and Electronic Healthcare Record (EHR). It was noted that the development of the Health App is broadly on target and that feedback on the public beta has been positive.

In relation to the SCR, the CIO advised the Committee that the tender process is ongoing and a target operating model is expected by the end of the year. The Committee discussed the possibility of using a single national solution the CIO confirmed that this is currently under consideration. It was agreed that the Chair would seek support from the Board and add to the BSS when this direction has been agreed.

The Committee discussed the development of the EHR for Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) and the CIO confirmed that the system will be chosen by the medical community as the best clinical solution. The Committee highlighted that the benefits of EHR will be significant in this context considering the differences between treating children and adults.

The CIO, as acting CTTO, presented to the Committee the CTTO Report which provides a broad view of relevant programmes under the headings of eHealth Achievements, Run, Grow, Transform, and Protect.

The CIO confirmed that an EHR steering group which will consider the business case for the rollout of EHR has been stood up which will work with the DOH to ensure that it is fit for purpose, particularly in relation to staffing and implementation cost.

The CIO updated the Committee on the National Service Desk which is experiencing consistently high numbers of calls and it was agreed that information on the top 10 requests received would be provided to the Committee.

The CIO confirmed that there were no major cyber incidents to report and that the Cybersecurity Maturity assessment which is currently underway should be available for the September Committee meeting.

J Bellew presented to the Committee on current core initiatives for the Telehealth programme: Remote Consultations & Care: Video Enabled Care (VEC); Remote Health Monitoring - Virtual Wards; and Remote Health Monitoring - Remote Monitoring of Chronic Disease (‘Seedling’) Projects. These initiatives are being developed in line with the HSE Telehealth Roadmap 2024-2027 which will allow significant scaling.

The Committee discussed how these projects work in practice and M Smith confirmed that they are all clinically owned and the potential for positively impacting workflow and productivity is huge. The Committee expressed its full support for these initiatives and the Chair agreed to bring this support to the Board at its next meeting.

The CIO updated the Committee on the implementation of the ICT Capital Plan 2024 which was developed to be fully aligned with the then emerging Digital Health Strategic Roadmap (DHSIR). He advised that spending is going as expected and that a number of mature programmes are at the peak of their investment life cycle which include the CHI EHR, IFMS, and imaging and labs which make up the most significant spend.

The Committee discussed a summary of programme delivery against targets which had been circulated in advance of the meeting, and the CIO advised that while the majority of programmes are on schedule, all sites are reporting lack of staff. The Committee requested that a breakdown of the projects which comprise each programme is provided at a later meeting.

7.1 Healthcare Data Analytics Project

T Laffan and S McGuinness presented to the Committee on the Healthcare Data Analytics Project, highlighting that Data Driven Services is one of the key principles of the new Digital Health Framework for Ireland. It states that the HSE will leverage data analytics, business intelligence, visualisation, dashboards, and other digitally enabled management tools to provide greater insights into the health service and its operation.

The Committee was advised that the project has support from the CEO and REOs and, under the chair of the CTTO, a new National Healthcare Data Analytics Steering Group has been formed to gain momentum and influence the overall direction of Healthcare Data Analytics. In relation to the Health Performance and Visualisation Platform (HPVP), the Committee was advised that the tender process was unsuccessful and it has been extended by 6 months.

The Committee thanked T Laffan and S McGuinness for the presentation and expressed its full support for this work.

The CRO presented the Q1 2024 Corporate Risk Register (CRR) to the Committee. The CRR’s recent review was discussed as well as the changes to CRR Risk 07 Cyber Security which has been allocated to the Committee. The Committee discussed the impact the upcoming Cybersecurity Maturity assessment will have on this risk.

The Committee noted the briefing document on the CRR review and the Q1 2024 CRR. It was agreed that the CRO would return to the Committee at a future meeting to discuss risk and compliance culture in particular.

Nothing was raised under this item.

The meeting concluded at 12:45.