Northern Ireland’s Department of Health (DoH) has set out a timescale to complete the roll out of the My Care patient portal in the province.
Health Minister Mike Nesbitt has also urged people to sign up for access to the portal, which gives patients and service users access to their digital health records.
The portal, which has been developed under the DoH’s encompass digital records programme, has already been deployed in the South Eastern and Belfast Health and Social Care Trust areas.
DoH said the next expected ‘go live’ dates are for the Northern Health and Social Care Trust in November, and Western and Southern in May of next year.
Patients in those areas will be able to access My Care once it goes live.
Revolutionary for patients
Nesbitt said: “Building on the transformation to electronic patient records facilitated by encompass, this patient portal provides personalised and secure online access to information including medical appointments, medication and some test results.
“This is truly revolutionary in empowering patients to take an active role in their healthcare and wellness.
“I would encourage patients to create a My Care account so they can access information as it becomes available in their trust area.”
The senior responsible owner for encompass, Dr Dermot Hughes, said: “My Care is an important component running alongside the introduction of encompass and has huge benefits for patients. We are continuing with work to roll out encompass across the remaining three Trust areas and have no doubt that My Care will play a significant part in its success.”
The implementation of the patient record is taking place under a five-year IT managed services contract between Telefónica Tech and Health and Social Care Northern Ireland’s Business Services Organisation.
