Energy: New EU plans to cut energy consumption
Thursday, April 11th, 2013With the EU’s 2020 energy efficiency target in difficulty, a new Directive focuses on introducing obligation schemes for the public sector. A new Energy Efficiency Directive has come into force which obliges member states to set a national target by 30 April 2013 and sets out a long-term strategy for renovating public and private residential and commercial building stock. In its 2007 energy policy framework, Ireland voluntarily adopted a target of reducing expected energy demand in 2020 by 20 per cent. This is re-affirmed in the second National Energy Efficiency Action Plan,...[full story]
Health and care services: Embracing technology to support transformation
Thursday, April 11th, 2013Pat Power, Head of Accenture Ireland’s Healthcare practice, outlines the main trends in health technology and how these can be used in practice to benefit patients. Health budgets are under pressure across the EU and the agenda is cost-driven. In Ireland, health spend has been reduced by over €2 billion since 2009 and the HSE has targeted further savings of over €700 million in its 2013 Service Plan. As health organisations face further cost reductions, a key question is “How can healthcare organisations manage cost without compromising patient outcomes?” Far from compromising...[full story]
Health and care services: Managing health in lean times
Thursday, April 11th, 2013Laverne McGuinness, the HSE’s National Director for Integrated Services, tells an eolas seminar how reform is improving services on the ground, even when demand is rising and resources are decreasing. In a time of considerable change, the Health Service is making real progress in administering and delivering care in a more efficient way. However, major challenges remain as the system faces further staff and budget reductions. Laverne McGuinness, the National Director for Integrated Services at the Health Service Executive, explained how the service was managing “in lean times”...[full story]
Health and care services: Screening for a healthier nation
Thursday, April 11th, 2013Quality assured population-based screening programmes. Population-based screening programmes are a vital feature of health provision in Ireland for the past twelve years and continue to grow, with two million people eligible for at least one screening programme. Screening programmes aim to increase the prospect of better health for longer. Reducing the incidence and impact of the conditions screened is a key objective of quality-assured population-based screening programmes, as early detection of a disease or condition means it is easier to treat resulting in improved outcomes. A population...[full story]
Health: Drivers for change in health
Tuesday, April 9th, 2013Dr Brian Turner explains why economics and demographics are changing the Health Service and suggests that government targets may be too ambitious to be delivered. Ireland’s health system, like our economy, is facing significant challenges. Some of these are outside our control, but nonetheless, these challenges need to be managed. Furthermore, the Government is committed to implementing the most ambitious and wide-ranging reforms of the health system in the history of the State. These reforms would be challenging even in benign economic times, but are made all the more challenging...[full story]
Health: Celebrating 40 years of the barcode: the Global Language of Business
Tuesday, April 9th, 2013Standardised systems can help to make healthcare more efficient and accurate, therefore improving the safety of patients. For 40 years, GS1 has been bringing industries together to revolutionise the way they do business. In 1973, industry leaders came together to select a single standard for product identification: the barcode. What started as a way to speed up the grocery store check-out has become the global language of business: a common way for trading partners around the world to identify, capture, and share information about products, locations and more. Today, GS1 is helping diverse...[full story]
Health: Increasing dividends from health research
Tuesday, April 9th, 2013Health research delivers many practical benefits in addition to economic and employment returns. ‘At a time when everyone is focusing on the economic and the employment payback from investments, the full extent of the benefits from health research can get a little lost in that mix,’ says Enda Connolly, Chief Executive of the Health Research Board. ‘Research can improve people’s health and patient care, transform delivery of our health services and potentially save lives. ‘The key’, according to Connolly, ‘is to effectively transfer the relevant research findings into the...[full story]
Health: Quality in healthcare
Tuesday, April 9th, 2013The experience of patients is the only way to assess standards in healthcare, says the Health Information and Quality Authority’s Hilary Coates. She outlined the key components of a safe, high quality system at eolas’ seminar on the future of health. A constant level of activity in healthcare means that professionals find it difficult to stop and think about how to improve services, Hilary Coates finds. Coates is Head of Safety, Learning and Operations at the Health Information and Quality Authority, which was established in 2007 and now has a clear vision of how a “safe, high...[full story]
Health: Scalable clinical transformation
Tuesday, April 9th, 2013Kip Webb, Accenture’s Global Managing Director of Clinical Services, explains how handing responsibility to clinicians can improve the quality of healthcare. Cost, quality and efficiency are top goals of health systems but they must balance with the added complexity of clinical practices. Doctors and clinicians want to improve patient outcomes but evidenced-based care is not as simple as following a rule book. The challenge is that health systems have to identify preferred clinical practices in the context of thousands of clinicians and tens of thousands of individual patients. Accenture...[full story]
Health: Delivering improved mental health services
Tuesday, April 9th, 2013Orla Barry, Director of Mental Health Reform, outlines how community-based services, an ethos of supporting recovery across the public sector, and greater accountability can change Ireland’s mental health for the better. In considering what is needed to deliver improved mental health services, the quick answer is the full implementation of ‘A Vision for Change’, Ireland’s mental health policy published in 2006. This policy framework marks the transition from the institutional care model of the old psychiatric hospitals to a modern, person-focused, community-based mental health...[full story]
