St Patrick’s Mental Health Services launches Ireland’s first online personal health portal

Fully integrated health records

The roll-out of the portal comes just three years after we became the first healthcare service in Ireland to introduce a fully integrated electronic health record, a digital version of the service user’s paper chart which is accessed and updated by anyone in SPMHS who is involved in their care.

This is a timely development as Irish society moves more and more toward using online platforms to engage with healthcare services. This shift has been reflected in the updated national mental healthcare strategy, Sharing the Vision, which sets out a greater usage of digital health interventions in its policy objectives. Our electronic healthcare record was also central to the successful implementation of our remote services, delivering vital mental healthcare throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The addition of Your Portal will ensure that we are well placed to deliver the highest quality of remote service delivery into the future.

Innovative and empowering technologies

Speaking about the new portal, our Medical Director, Professor Paul Fearon, said:

 “Involving service users in their recovery is crucial to positive clinical outcomes. Guided by a strong human rights framework, we are committed, as part of our strategy, to developing infrastructure that will empower service users to be involved in their care and treatment.  This new portal will transform how service users participate with, and use, our services, facilitating them to take an active role in their journey to recovery.”

Orla Gogarty, our Director of Digital Health, said; 

“Enabling service users to have access to their own health information in real time through enabling technology is transformational and empowering. Our key focus is the continuous development and integration of innovative, safe and reliable technologies which support our service users to access and engage in their treatment and recovery. Our new portal will offer greater convenience to service users, and will ultimately enable us to pursue new technology approaches in this rapidly developing and exciting area of mental health treatment.”

Sean Fitzpatrick, member of our Service User Advisory Network, said: 

“From the very beginning of this exciting project, right through to the first phase launch, service users have been involved in, and have had the opportunity to inform the development and roll-out of this portal, with insights from service users shaping how the portal looks and what can be done with it. From functionalities such as being able to share information with friends and family when in need of support, it is clear that the portal places service users at its core and will empower them in their recovery journey.”

Your Portal rollout 

Your Portal will be rolled out in a number of phases from July 2020. The first phase enables our service users to view appointment details, receive messages from their care team, complete forms contributing to their care and treatment, and access links to other resources and websites providing helpful information.

As the roll-out of the portal continues, service users will be able to:

• See further key information shared from their electronic health record by their team, such as diagnosis, medication prescribed during care and some test results
• Use additional assessments and forms as they become available across all our services
• View new informational videos
• Use features such as being able to monitor and track mood, sleep or eating patterns and similar, enabling service users to discuss these as required during their appointment with their clinician.

The portal is being supplied in conjunction with Patient Knows Best (PKB), the leading supplier of personal health records in the UK, and is hosted within the NHS network.

You can find out more about this service here, while SPMHS service users can register here. Alternatively, SPMHS service users can phone the new Service User IT Support Helpdesk on 01 249 3629 or reach the Support Helpdesk online here.