The <strong><em>Medical Independent</em></strong> (<strong><em>MI</em></strong>) asked the HSE whether it had plans to invest in replacements for the ‘bleep system’ in its hospitals.
The IMO passed a motion at its AGM in April calling on the “HSE to invest in hospital telecommunications systems to replace the outdated bleep system”.
During the AGM, many young doctors spoke about how a system based on smartphone technology may be preferable.
“The current investment the HSE makes on technology is around € 150 million in total; this equates to around 0.3 per cent of the entire budget,” Mr Richard Corbridge, HSE Chief Information Officer, told <strong><em>MI</em></strong>.
“EU norms in this area range between 3 per cent and 7 per cent. Each investment call has to be considered against this backdrop.
“A more modern handover and alert system has been implemented in a number of hospitals on a trial basis, most recently [St] Vincent’s Hospital has implemented a solution from an Irish company that came from the Future Health Programme within the NDRC, Medxnote.
“The HSE has created a set of standards for solutions like this and is working with Vincent’s to evaluate what has been deployed and how it has been deployed.
<p class=”captionwhiteMIstyles”>“The strategy will be to create a multi-vendor framework that will allow hospitals and other care organisations to draw down from as they are ready to implement such solutions. This will be done against a set of security and usability standards the HSE will publish.”
