Definition
An Individual Health Identifier is a number that identifies each person who has used, or may use a health or social care service in Ireland. Each individual will be assigned their own personal number which is unique to them. The main benefit of having an Individual Health Identifier is to uniquely identify each service user and therefore, improve patient safety by reducing errors that might happen, such as ensuring patients receive the correct medication, vaccinations, and treatment.
The IHI is established first and foremost as a patient safety mechanism. It also allows for a new level of auditability and traceability for healthcare information by providing a record of who accessed information and when. No medical information is contained within the IHI register.
Metadata items in this Data Set Specification
Below is a list of all the components within this Dataset Specification.
Each entry includes the item name, whether the item is optional, mandatory or conditional and the maximum times the item can occur in a dataset.
If the items must occur in a particular order in the dataset, the sequence number is included before the item name.
| Reference | Data Element | Data Type | Length | Inclusion | # |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Patient Given Name | Character | - | conditional | 1 | |
| Patient Family Name | Character | - | conditional | 1 | |
| Patient Gender | Character | 1 | conditional | 1 | |
| Patient Date of Birth | Date | 10 | conditional | 1 | |
| Patient Mothers Birth Family Name | Character | - | conditional | 1 | |
| Patient Postcode | Character | 7 | conditional | 1 | |
| Patient Address Line 1 | Character | - | conditional | 1 | |
| Patient Personal Public Service Number | Character | 18 | conditional | 1 | |
| Record Identifier | Character | 18 | conditional | 1 | |
| IHI Number | Character | 18 | conditional | 1 | |
| Patient Safe Level | Character | 18 | conditional | 1 | |
| Patient Date of Death | Date | 10 | conditional | 1 | |
| Patient Middle Name | Character | - | conditional | 1 | |
| Patient Date of Birth Time | Time | 8 | conditional | 1 | |
| Patient Nationality | Character | - | conditional | 1 | |
| Patient Birth Place | Character | - | conditional | 1 | |
| Patient Multiple Birth Order | Character | - | conditional | 1 | |
| VIP | Boolean | 1 | conditional | 1 | |
| Name Type | Character | - | conditional | 1 | |
| Patient Home Address Other Designation | Character | - | conditional | 1 | |
| Patient Home Address City | Character | - | conditional | 1 | |
| Patient Home Address County | - | - | conditional | 1 | |
| Patient Home Address Country | Character | - | conditional | 1 | |
| Patient Home Address Other Geographic Designation | Character | - | conditional | 1 | |
| Patient Email Address | Character | 256 | conditional | 1 | |
| Patient Mother’s Other Family Name(s) | Character | - | conditional | 1 | |
| Patient Date of Last Activity | Date | 10 | conditional | 1 | |
| Address: Purpose of Address | - | - | conditional | 1 |
References
https://www.hse.ie/eng/services/news/media/pressrel/the-hse-and-ehealth-ireland-welcome-the-commencement-order-for-the-individual-health-identifier-.html
Related content
| Relation | Count |
|---|---|
| As a numerator in an Indicator | 0 |
| As a denominator in an Indicator | 0 |
| As a disaggregation in an Indicator | 0 |