Lisa Farrelly, General Manager, HSE Health Identifiers Service

The HSE and community pharmacy sector reached an important milestone on 18 September 2026 with the successful rollout of Individual Health Identifiers (IHIs) to community pharmacy systems. As part of the initial implementation, 1.57 million IHIs were made available to pharmacies through the monthly Reimbursement File process.

The IHI is a unique number assigned to an individual and is a key enabler of Ireland’s Digital for Care 2030 agenda. By providing a consistent and reliable way to identify individuals across healthcare services, the IHI supports the accurate and secure linking of health information, helping to improve patient safety, data quality and continuity of care.

The integration of IHIs within community pharmacy systems is an important step in implementing the Health Identifiers framework and has been facilitated through the Community Pharmacy Agreement. As a core digital enabler, the IHI provides the trusted foundation needed to accurately identify individuals and securely connect health information across services. This capability underpins the delivery of connected digital health initiatives, including the HSE Health App, Shared Care Records and Electronic Health Records, supporting more integrated, efficient and patient-centred care.

This successful implementation reflects close collaboration between the HSE Health Identifiers Service (HIDS), the Primary Care Reimbursement Service (PCRS), the IPU, the PSI, community pharmacy software vendors and participating pilot pharmacy sites, whose combined efforts enabled the successful delivery of IHI integration across pharmacy systems nationwide.

This milestone lays the foundation for the continued expansion of IHI availability across community pharmacy. Additional IHIs will continue to be released each month as further individuals are included in the monthly reimbursement file. To ensure pharmacy systems receive and populate newly available IHIs, pharmacies should continue to load the Monthly Reimbursement File as part of their routine monthly processes.

Community pharmacies are encouraged to review the FAQ poster, circulated by email, for further information on the benefits of the IHI, its role in supporting the secure linking of patient health information, and the legislative and policy framework underpinning its use.

Further queries can be sent to IHI@hse.ie.

What this means for community pharmacy

Lynda Slattery, Digital Pharmacy Technician, IPU

For pharmacy teams, the introduction of the Individual Health Identifier (IHI) creates opportunities to improve everyday workflows by making it easier to identify patients accurately and connect information across pharmacy systems. Over time, the IHI can help bring together information already held within pharmacy systems under one consistent identifier, reducing duplicate records and supporting a more complete picture of the patient’s medicines and pharmacy care.

As IHIs become available on incoming information, such as prescriptions, pharmacy systems will be better placed to match that information automatically to the correct patient medication record. This has the potential to reduce manual entry, avoid duplication and minimise the risk of information being recorded against the wrong patient. It could also help create more joined-up workflows between prescribing, dispensing and pharmacy consultations, reducing the need for pharmacy teams to repeatedly enter or reconcile the same information.

The IHI also presents opportunities to simplify how pharmacy teams retrieve and use patient information when delivering clinical services. As pharmacists take on an expanding range of services, the ability to identify the correct patient record and reuse information already available within the system will become increasingly important in supporting efficient workflows and allowing more time for patient care.

Building on the HSE’s integration work, the IPU will work with national stakeholders and pharmacy-system vendors to explore how the IHI can support practical improvements in pharmacy workflows, with a focus on patient safety, reducing administrative burden and making better use of information already available.

In the next edition of the IPU Review, we will take a closer look at digital solutions and practical ways of working, including how pharmacy teams can make better use of existing systems, integrate new digital tools into everyday workflows and free up more time for delivering services and caring for patients. The IHI is an important foundation for these developments and for community pharmacy’s future participation in ePrescribing, shared care records and wider national digital health programmes.