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The Health Service Executive (HSE) is seeking the views of members of the public on the implementation of the system of individual health identifier numbers, as provided for in the Health Identifiers Act 2014. The aim of the health identifiers system is to ensure that health and social care services are provided to the right person, in the right place, at the right time. The system involves assigning a unique number to each recipient of healthcare services. The numbers assigned to individuals will be known as “Individual Health Identifiers” (“IHI’s”) and the HSE has been tasked with establishing a workable health identifier system. The system will involve the HSE retaining certain information about all recipients of healthcare services, so that each healthcare user may be uniquely identified. These IHI’s are an essential aspect of the HSE’s plan to establish an Electronic Health Record (“EHR”), the aim of which is to ensure that a patient’s health records are centrally located and accessible, where appropriate, to all healthcare providers. For more information on the EHR, please see our previous blog: eHealth Ireland announces consultation process for Electronic Health Record Priorities. As the HSE will be obtaining and processing data about individuals as part of the IHI process, privacy safeguards are fundamental to the new system. The HSE and eHealth Ireland are conducting this public consultation to ensure stakeholder involvement from members of the public. The submissions received during this consultation will form part of the Privacy Impact Assessment (“PIA”) for the IHI system. The purpose of this PIA is to guard against the risk of personal information of individuals being incorrectly disclosed and ensure that the correct safeguards are installed. A draft version of the PIA has already been prepared and the HSE are seeking the views of the public on whether this document will sufficiently protect the privacy of individuals. For more information on the public consultation, and to view the draft PIA, please click here. There is a convenient Online Feedback Form which can be utilised to make submissions. The closing date for submissions is this Friday, 8 April 2016. Author: Zoe Richardson