Prof. Martin Curley
Chair, Irish Digital Health Leadership Steering Group
Ireland is experiencing a health crisis, failing to reduce and manage waiting lists and currently falling to the bottom of global health systems ranking lists.
The shortcomings of the Irish healthcare system are not fair to patients or staff. Great care is often given when you get into the Irish Health System. There are many fine and passionate staff who work for the HSE and across the broader health system, but they are equipped with very substandard tools.
This hampers productivity and morale, but more importantly means that clinicians have to provide care without complete information — and this means, sometimes, the wrong decisions can be made.
Upgrading health
There are significant issues with healthcare availability, affordability and accessibility. It’s surprising how a country with so many other strengths is performing poorly in health. I believe we have an opportunity to transform our Irish health system through the use of digital technology.
The human lifespan has doubled within 1.5 centuries due to public health and clinical advances. With this consideration, it’s essential for health systems to keep up with the demand and ensure people receive effective care at every stage of their life.
The human lifespan has doubled within 1.5 centuries due to public health and clinical advances.
Shifting beliefs
Key answers are embedded in the Manhattan Manifesto released following the United Nations General Assembly 77 Science Summit Digital Health Symposium.
I believe there are three massive shifts to be made: from treating illness to promoting wellness, including the earlier identification of rare diseases and chronic conditions; from treating people in the hospital to treating them in the community, ideally their own homes; and from ‘doctor knows best’ to ‘patients know best,’ which can be adopted to rapidly improve our healthcare system.
Invest in healthcare
The Manhattan Manifesto, developed by 50 global digital health leaders describes 12 guidelines for governments to adopt to drive the transition to a digital healthcare system, not least raising digital spending to 6% of total spend.
But this is not the main problem, Ireland is already an outlier in how much it spends on healthcare compared to other countries. The issue is culture and whether the will exists to transform the system.
Many effective and clinically proven digital solutions were developed in Living Labs in Ireland with clinicians and patients alike but experienced extreme resistance from a small group of senior administrators.
The Irish Digital Health Leadership Steering group comprises committed leaders across the spectrum in Ireland who want to transform healthcare. If we can’t scale Everest, we can go around it.