Irish Private Hospitals Are Leading on Digital Forms and eSignature. Here’s How Public Hospitals Can Prepare for the National EHR

By Art Nicholas, Chief Growth Officer, Interlace Health

Ireland’s health system is mid-transformation. Private hospital groups are already digitising registration and consent, and the government has approved the HSE to begin procurement of a national electronic health record, while the shared care record and HSE Health App continue to expand. The direction is clear: the digital record is coming.

Patient forms, consents and registration paperwork, however, don’t automatically move with it. A national EHR creates one place for clinical data. It doesn’t remove the paper consent at the front desk, the manual referral, or the downtime form completed by hand when systems go offline. That gap is where digital forms, electronic consent and eSignature earn their place.

Private healthcare: Moving first on digital registration and consent

Private hospital groups are not waiting on a national programme. They compete on patient experience, and registration and consent are the front door of that experience.

• Pre-admission digitisation. Patients can complete intake, health questionnaires, insurance details and consents before they arrive.
• Insurance and self-pay documentation. Private care carries financial acknowledgements that public care doesn’t carry in the same form.
• Speed to value. A workflow layer can be deployed in months, and measured in registration time, fewer errors and eliminated paper.

Where Ireland’s national EHR stands in 2026

In February 2026, the Government approved the HSE to move into procurement for a national EHR. The HSE’s tender calls it the “HSE One Health Record“: a unified, lifetime electronic healthcare record for every patient. The HSE expects to choose a vendor in 2027. Rollout then runs region by region, with HSE Dublin and North East going live first in 2029 and the final health regions in 2032.

Sláintecare identified electronic health records as a key enabler of reform, and the programme now has momentum. For hospital leaders, it also means years of transition. Forms, consents and registration must keep working today and connect cleanly to the national record when it arrives.

Public healthcare: Planning around the national EHR

Public hospitals are managing a long, phased journey while still running on mixed and fragmented systems.

• Paper persists in the gaps. Between today’s systems and the national EHR, consents, referrals and patient registration forms remain largely manual.
• Procurement is structured. A forms and eSignature layer needs to be positioned as a complement to the national EHR programme, not a competitor to it.
• Some needs surface late. Intake, registration and referrals are the obvious starting points. Consent and downtime procedures tend to emerge once a project is underway.
• Governance carries weight. HIQA standards and GDPR make audit trails, identity verification and defensible consent capture essential.

Consent, governance and the HSE National Consent Policy

Consent is where the stakes are highest. HSE staff and HSE-funded services follow the HSE National Consent Policy, which sets out what makes consent valid, how decision-making capacity is assessed, and how consent is documented. The current version (v1.2, in effect since January 2024) was revised to align with the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015, which applies across public and private care.

Together with HIQA’s national standards and GDPR, that puts the weight on evidence: who consented, to what, when, with what information, and how their identity was confirmed. Paper struggles to produce that trail consistently. Electronic consent with eSignature captures it the same way every time, with a time-stamped audit trail attached to the patient’s record.

What we shared and learned at MUN 2026

At MUN 2026 in Liverpool, we joined ACS Medihealth, Forward Advantage and Commure to present a 30-minute patient journey session to over 200 attendees from public and private MEDITECH organisations across Ireland and the UK. We walked through where forms and eSignature touch the patient from intake to discharge, and what that means for public and private care.

The paper-based scenarios we showed drew strong recognition from the room. For Ireland, a few themes stood out:

• Referrals look different here. In the UK, referrals are largely digital. In Ireland the picture is far more mixed, which makes intake and referral paperwork one of the clearest opportunities.
• Private providers feel the paper first. Electronic consent was less common among private providers in our conversations, and private groups were the quickest to start scoping broader projects.
• Public providers are planning around the national EHR. The question is which form needs the EHR will cover, and which will surface later.
• Downtime is a real gap. Several attendees described their current downtime processes as insufficient.

The takeaway: where Irish hospitals should start

The question isn’t whether to digitise forms, but where to start. Private hospitals can move now and set the pace. Public providers can take paper out of the gaps today and be ready for the national electronic health record. Either way, a forms and eSignature layer can deliver value alongside the larger EHR decisions.

Talk to our UK & Ireland team

Frequently asked questions

What is Ireland’s national electronic health record?

The HSE One Health Record is the national EHR the HSE is procuring to give every patient in Ireland one integrated, lifetime digital record. Government approved procurement in February 2026; the first region is due to go live in 2029, with national rollout planned to complete in 2032.

Will the national EHR digitise patient consent forms?

Not on its own. An EHR centralises clinical data, but consent, registration, referral and downtime forms still need a digital capture process that feeds the record. That is the role of a forms and eSignature layer.

What does the HSE National Consent Policy cover?

It sets out the requirements for valid consent, how decision-making capacity is assessed in line with the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015, and how consent should be documented. Version 1.2 has been in effect since January 2024.

Can private hospitals in Ireland digitise consent before the national EHR?

Yes. Private hospital groups are not tied to the national EHR timeline and can deploy digital pre-admission, consent and financial forms within months.