Monthly Archives: October, 2019

Mr. Lorcan Birthistle, President, HMI and CEO, St James’s Hospital, Dublin, welcomed health managers from all over the country, who packed the Concert Hall at the RDS, Dublin for the ninth HMI Annual Conference, last week.

The establishment of a fully resourced and qualified forensic team with the appropriate authority to examine processes and practices across the HSE, to deliver efficiencies within healthcare delivery should be an absolute priority, Mr. Jim Daly, Minister of State at the Department of Health, with special responsibility for Mental Health & Older People, said when he addressed the Conference.

HSE CEO, Mr. Paul Reid strongly challenged what he said was the “relentless media commentary” that the private sector would do better than the public sector managing the Irish health service, when he gave the keynote address to the Conference.

Health equity means fair opportunity to live a long, healthy life and inequities in health are not inevitable or necessary, but unjust and the product of unfair social, economic and political arrangements, Ms. Suzanne Costello, Chief Executive, Institute of Public Health in Ireland told the Conference.

The majority of Senior Health Managers want policymakers to prioritise service integration and introduce electronic patient records, according to new research, carried out by the Health Management Institute of Ireland (HMI), Ms Sharon Morrow HMI Council Member and Director of the All-Island Congenital Heart Disease Network told the Conference.

Ten per cent of the population used seventy per cent of acute hospital and community prescribing resources and seventy-seven per cent of bed days, Prof. Áine Carroll, Professor of Healthcare Integration and improvement at UCD/NRH and Co-Director, the International Foundation for Integrated Care (IFIC) Ireland, said when she addressed the Conference.

“I couldn’t find clear management structures in place in the HSE in regard to CervicalCheck”, Dr Gabriel Scally who carried out the inquiry into the CervicalCheck controversy told the Conference.

Access to publicly funded healthcare for those without private health insurance in Ireland was a disgrace and the biggest risk to the Irish health service now would be to make no changes, Dr Tom Keane, Former Director of the National Cancer Control Programme and current Chair of the Sláintecare Implementation Advisory Council said, when he addressed the Conference.

Ireland’s mortality rate from stroke had fallen from 19% to 8% without an increase in nursing home discharge over the last decade, Prof. Ronán Collins, National Clinical Lead for Stroke and consultant in geriatric and stroke medicine at Tallaght University Hospital, told the Conference.

The agenda and speakers at the HMI Conference were testament to the contribution that the HMI was making towards knowledge sharing and indeed performance in the health care system, Mr. Liam Cullen, Director External Affairs and Public Policy, GSK Ireland, told the Conference.

Traditionally in Ireland women had always rated themselves as happier than men, but the gap had closed over the last 40 years and men were now  rating themselves happier than women,  Prof. Brendan Kelly, Professor of Psychiatry at Trinity College Dublin, Consultant Psychiatrist at Tallaght University Hospital and Clinical Professor at UCD School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, told the Conference.

Five per cent more staff working in real teams was associated with 3.3% drop in mortality rate (p= .006), which for an “average” acute hospital, represented around 40 deaths per year, Ms. Suzie Bailey, Executive Director of Leadership and Organisational Development Team, King’s Fund, told the Conference.

Ms. Tina Joyce, Programme Director of the Institute of Leadership at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, highlighted the research she is doing with the current Hospital Groups and large scale structural change, and how this will be relevant in the implementation Slaintecare.

The Conference sessions were chaired by HMI President, Mr. Lorcan Birthistle, CEO of St. James’s Hospital, Dublin and HMI Vice-President, Mr. Tony Canavan, CEO of the Saolta University Health Care Group.