The services which it was planned would be available when the first phase of the portal went live included: a health and personal social services directory; a comprehensive and easily understood database of information on how the health services operate in Ireland; comprehensive, easily navigable information about health topics and illness; anonymous on-line advice from health professionals in response to specific health-related queries; a facility to order and pay for birth, marriage and death certificates; accurate and up-to-date information about hospital waiting lists; on-line learning and reference facilities for health professionals; and European Health Insurance Card (E111) applications.
In the longer term, the portal was expected to provide for on-line delivery of laboratory and test results to GPs; processing of on-line applications for medical cards and home modification grants; allow GPs to make consultant appointments on-line for patients; and for both patients and medical staff to be able to consult the patients on-line medical records.
Delivery of the Portal
A tender competition for development of the portal was advertised in December 2003. In seeking tenders, the HeBE limited the work to development of the system structure and the infrastructure hardware for the portal. Any aspect of 'back-office' work on delivery of the planned on-line services was excluded.
In February 2004, IBM was selected as the most economically advantageous of the tenders received. Contracts for development of the portal and for the necessary software were signed on 31 March 2004. The contract timetable envisaged the launch of the portal by 4 May 2004 and availability of the phase 1 services by 30 June 2004.
The health portal was officially 'launched' at the 2nd European Health Conference, held in Cork on 5/6 May 2004. This involved a member of the project team giving a demonstration of the aspects of the portal that were fully working. The portal was not available on-line or functional for web users (The web address chosen for the health portal was www.HealthIreland.ie - no longer functioning).
The services planned for the launch did not subsequently become available on-line. Phase 1 of the portal was also not delivered.
For further information, please download (.pdf, 1,66 MB, pages 25 - 27) "Special Report Number 58: eGovernment".
© Government of Ireland 2007, Comptroller and Auditor General Special Report, eGovernment.