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The Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) has introduced a set of standards governing the allocation of Individual Health Identifiers. These are unique identifying numbers which are allocated to users of health and social care systems. They will be used to assist in ensuring appropriate treatment for that person as they use the various services throughout their lifetime. At the recent launch of the Information Governance and Management Standards to apply to the implementation and use of the system, Minister for Health, Leo Varadkar noted: “This will improve patient safety, reduce duplication and errors, and give us a huge amount of new data that we can use to make services more efficient and improve planning”.
Rachel Flynn, the Acting Director of Health Information at HIQA commented at the launch: “Individual Health Identifiers are essential in ensuring patient safety and improving the sharing of healthcare information between healthcare practitioners. By uniquely identifying service users, it is possible to reduce the number of adverse events that may occur, such as giving the patient incorrect medication or vaccinations, or admitting an incorrect patient for surgery”