Ireland’s first national AI strategy has been published, outlining opportunities for AI deployment over the next five years, and setting out four strategic pillars covering AI for clinical care, operations, research and innovation, and public health.
The government commits to using AI to enhance quality of care, empower clinicians, improve system efficiencies, shorten waiting times, streamline patient pathways, develop targeted insights, and deliver more targeted prevention. The needs of patients and the public will be a guiding principle, along with transparency and trustworthiness, and keeping a human-in-the-loop.
A continuous learning approach will be taken to deployment, the government shares, allowing for agility in a rapidly-changing environment as the technology evolves. Appropriate governance mechanisms will be put in place to ensure adoption aligns with current policies and regulations. Generating value from investments is also listed as a guiding principle, with continuous monitoring and evaluation helping ensure the strategy consistently delivers “measurable high value outcomes”.
From a clinical perspective, AI will be used in personalising treatment plans, early disease detection, enhancing diagnostic accuracy, and clinician support. The government highlights three focus areas, including the use of AI to drive patient self-management with continuous monitoring and personalised support; AI to improve diagnostic accuracy and treatment effectiveness with decision support tools; and AI to improve efficiency and accuracy in documenting medical records by capturing and summarising clinical encounters, creating discharge summaries and letters, and translating medical language. A case study is illustrated of the use of AI in stroke management, providing results to clinicians within two minutes, and detecting blood traces and vessel blockages in up to two thousand images. “By deploying the AI software on every patient scan continuously, the hospital has accelerated care delivery and increased clot detection rates by 100 percent,” it states.
In operations, focuses include the use of AI in predicting patient flow, improving scheduling, allocating resources, and automating routine clinical tasks. In research and innovation, it will be used to streamline ethical approvals, automate evidence appraisals, optimise data integrity, identify opportunities for quality improvements, automate clinical audit, and automate clinical data collection from EHRs and imaging systems. On public health, the government also outlines plans to focus on population health surveillance, predictive analytics, and population-based screening.
Year one ambitions are to deploy AI in areas that have seen proven success, including in clinical diagnostics, reducing admin burdens, improving efficiencies with demand and supply chain management, and improving operational cost efficiencies and productivity. Years two and three will look at scaling, improving patient experience, advancing clinical diagnostics, optimising treatment pathways, translating research into applications, and applying AI in public health for prevention. In years four and five, new opportunities arising from the advancement of AI will be explored for their potential to be integrated into routine use across the health sector.
Welcoming the strategy, Health Minister Carroll MacNeill said: “AI offers us a rare opportunity to reshape how care is delivered – making it more timely, more personalised and more equitable. With AI for Care, Ireland is taking a responsible, ambitious, people‑centred approach to this future.”
An implementation plan has been developed, according to the government, but still needs to be approved by senior leadership along with necessary funding.
Wider trend: Digital transformation in Ireland
Ireland’s Minister for Health, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, has shared the impact of virtual care initiatives, highlighting “significant progress” around patient outcomes and relieving pressure on hospital capacity. Two pilot acute virtual wards at St. Vincent’s University Hospital and University Hospital Limerick have accrued 1,500 admissions, reportedly equating to 13,800 virtual bed days. A further four virtual wards have now been launched at Our Lady of Lourdes Drogheda, Midland Regional Hospital Tullamore, Mercy Hospital Cork, and St Luke’s Hospital Kilkenny; with plans for a fifth at Galway University Hospital in early 2026.
Procurement is set to begin in Ireland for a national EHR, following government approval received this week, offering a single integrated digital health record for every patient in the country. Vendor shortlisting will now begin with a tender process, with the selected solution to undergo phased rollout across all health regions. Noting that the procurement represents a “landmark step” in developing a modern and connected health service, Minister Carroll MacNeill said: “The National Electronic Health Record programme will be central to patients receiving safer, faster, and more integrated care, supporting clinicians and improving outcomes for everyone.”
The Irish government has published a national digital mental health strategy, focusing on access, communications, digital tools, co-production, research, innovation, and technology. Key digital initiatives include the HSE Health App, national shared care record, community care record, and EHR. The overarching vision is to take advantage of the potential of digital technologies to improve the quality and accessibility of mental health information, tools, and services. Principles include co-design with service users and the wider public, standards and governance for digital mental health, digitally secure foundations, digital inclusion, and a digitally enabled workforce.
