The Cabinet will today discus a plan to enable patients and healthcare professionals easily access medical records.
Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has been critical of the lack of electronic health records in this country and will today outline ways to change that.
The Digital Framework aims to make it possible for health workers to promptly get the information they need to treat their patients.
It will also allow patients to access their own medical records and manage their own care.
A patient app will be developed along with what is called a National Shared Record.
This record will allow doctors and other healthcare workers to quickly view a patient’s medications, allergies, blood test results and any current treatments.
Doctors and nurses could then make speedy clinical decisions.
Minister Donnelly will tell his Government colleagues that the pace at which the HSE will deliver this project will depend on available funding.
DART project would double peak passenger numbers
Minister Eamon Ryan will today seek the backing of Cabinet for the DART+ Coastal North rail project to enter the planning system.
The DART line currently ends at Malahide but this major project would see it extended by 37 kilometres to Drogheda in Co Louth.
This would mean that passenger capacity between Malahide and Drogheda would almost double from approximately 4,800 people travelling at peak hour to 8,800.
It would give communities along the route, such as Clongriffin, Donabate, Balbriggan and Skerries, high-frequency and fully electrified DART trains.
A planning application for the project will be submitted to An Bord Pleanála by July. Once approved, the project will take approximately three years to complete.
Housing uplift should be sustained
Separately, Housing Minster Darragh O’Brien will tell the Cabinet that 60% of all housing delivered in the last decade has occurred in the four-year period to end-March 2024.
There were 104,000 new homes built during that time and a further 11,568 homes which were either previously unfinished or were at least two years disconnected from the ESB network were added to the housing stock.
The memo going to Government notes that while it is too early in the year to accurately predict the final number new homes this year, the uplift of recent years should be sustained.
