Health Atlas Ireland

Data Collection Type
Additional collated sources of health information-national
Organisation

National Health Intelligence Unit, Research & Evidence, Strategy and Research, Jervis House, Jervis St., Dublin 1. D01 W596.

Year established

2006

Statement of purpose

To support the quest for better health for patients, their families and the population by exploiting the quality assurance, health mapping and research potential of available data.

Coverage (geographical and temporal)

Republic of Ireland.

This data collection commenced in 2006 and is ongoing.

Description/Summary

The open source application enables role-based web access to key health related datasets that enables ad-hoc queries, area profiling, quality of care, and geo-spatial analyses and displays to inform decision makers at all levels from clinical practice to policy. Health Atlas Ireland was developed by the National Health Intelligence Unit, HSE. It evolved in collaboration with many agencies including:

- Health Service Executive
- Health Protection Surveillance Centre - HSE
- OoCIO - HSE
- Sláintecare
- Department of Health
- Royal College of Physicians Ireland
- Royal College of Surgeons Ireland
- Central Statistics Office
- Ordnance Survey Ireland
- GeoDirectory
- University College Dublin
- National University Ireland Maynooth
- Dublin City University
- Trinity College Dublin
- Primary Care Eligibility & Reimbursement Service - HSE
- Economic and Social Research Institute
- Road Safety Authority
- An Garda Siochana
- Irish Air Corps
- Irish Coast Guard.
Seed funding was provided by the Health Research Board.

Data users

HSE, health policy-makers, acute & community clinical teams and researchers.

Data content

Health Atlas Ireland provides, via tiered access, an analytical and display route to a range of datasets gathered by others including: demography (census etc); hospital activity; prescribing; mortality; human resources; service location; along with a range of mapping functions.

Data dictionary

Each Health Atlas Ireland application has a ‘User Guide’ or equivalent defining key variables and methodologies, and refers back to the original data source(s) as appropriate.

Equity stratifiers

Per original data source(s) as appropriate.

Data collection methodology

Data is made available to Health Atlas Ireland, HSE from the various primary data collections at an agreed cadence.

Clinical coding scheme

Per original data source(s) as appropriate.

Size of national collection

Varies per original data source(s) – platform total 1.7M+

Publication frequency

Health Atlas Ireland is an analytical and display system that users can exploit in the context of their own missions. The frequency of data updates is determined by the primary data sources. The internal map centre allows HSE staff, and associated agencies, to use provided patient addresses to locate services, to create customised maps, and to review CSO demographic data for their areas. The ‘Services near you’ option on the HSE Website (http://www.hse.ie) allows the public to locate services on a map and to obtain key service contact information.

Accessing data

Access to most of the modules has to be sought and requested on a person by person basis through a controlled process – see www.healthatlasireland.ie All persons with access to the HSE internal network can access a part of the ‘collection’ e.g. to make use of a module to make use of census data, service location data and maps etc.

Open data portal access

No.