GEOGRAPHIC PROFILE OF HEALTHCARE NEEDS AND NON-ACUTE HEALTHCARE SUPPLY IN IRELAND. ESRI RESEARCH SERIES NUMBER 90 JULY 2019

This report provides evidence on the supply of and need for non-acute primary, community and long-term care across geographic areas in Ireland in 2014. This is the first report to be published from the Health Research Board-funded project ‘An inter-sectoral analysis by geographic area of the need for and the supply and utilisation of health services in Ireland’. This report provides the most comprehensive evidence on the geographic distribution of primary, community and long-term care supply to have been published for Ireland to date. Overall, the report finds significant inequalities in the supply of primary, community and longterm care services across counties in Ireland.1 The findings have important implications for future planning of the Irish health system. The overall objective of the project is to provide evidence to inform policymakers about the shift of care, where appropriate, from the acute hospital setting to nonacute care settings. This project is undertaken in the context of significant system reforms in recent years that aimed to, among other things, achieve greater integration in the Irish healthcare system via shifting care, where appropriate, from acute to non-acute settings and building capacity in primary, community and longterm care. The project sets out to provide detailed evidence on supply of services in the non-acute sector, compares supply across regions to identify where nonacute care supply is particularly scarce, and provides evidence on how acute and non-acute services interact, and substitute, within the Irish health and social care system. Evidence generated from this project is of particular relevance in the context of the current Sláintecare strategy (Houses of the Oireachtas Committee on the Future of Healthcare, 2017), a cross-party plan aimed at delivering sustainable and equitable health and social care services in Ireland

PROJECTIONS OF DEMAND FOR HEALTHCARE IN IRELAND, 2015-2030: FIRST REPORT FROM THE HIPPOCRATES MODEL. ESRI RESEARCH SERIES NUMBER 67 OCTOBER 2017

This report provides baseline estimates and projections of public and private healthcare demand for Irish health and social care services for the years 2015–2030. This is the first report to be published applying the Hippocrates projection model of Irish healthcare demand and expenditure which has been developed at the ESRI in a programme of research funded by the Department of Health. Development of the model has required a very detailed analysis of the services used in Irish health and social care in 2015. This is the most comprehensive mapping of both public and private activity in the Irish healthcare system to have been published for Ireland

AN ANALYSIS OF THE EFFECTS ON IRISH HOSPITAL CARE OF THE SUPPLY OF CARE INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE HOSPITAL. ESRI RESEARCH SERIES NUMBER 91 SEPTEMBER 2019

This report provides new evidence on key factors that affect patients’ length of stay (LOS) in Irish public acute hospitals. Overall, the report finds that greater supply of home care and long-term residential care (LTRC) could reduce patients’ LOS and thereby reduce delayed discharges, particularly for older people, in Irish hospitals. This is the second report published from the Health Research Board-funded project, An inter-sectoral analysis by geographic area of the need for and the supply and utilisation of health services in Ireland. Findings in this report build on comprehensive evidence from Smith et al. (2019) on the geographic distribution of long-term care and community care in Ireland in 2014. The overall objective of the project is to provide evidence to inform policymakers about the scope to move care from acute hospitals to other care settings in the community or LTRC (whether for longer stays or shorter-term rehabilitation or convalescence). This project is undertaken in the context of the Sláintecare (Houses of the Oireachtas Committee on the Future of Healthcare, 2017) reforms that seek to achieve greater integration in the Irish healthcare system and move delivery of care into the community where appropriate. The aim of this report is to contribute new evidence on key factors that affect patients’ LOS and the extent of delayed discharges in public hospitals

The great convergence? Mortality in Ireland and Europe, 1956–2014. ESRI Research Bulletin 202019 September 2020.

This study examines differences in mortality in Ireland and the EU-15 between 1956 and 2014 and provides insights into the causes of death and age groups responsible for the recent convergence to our EU-15 peers

How many beds? Capacity implications of hospital care demand projections in the Irish hospital system, 2015-2030. ESRI Research Bulletin 2018/11

The Irish hospital system at present does not have enough hospital beds to meet demand for care adequately. When measured against other OECD countries, Ireland has a low supply of hospital beds and records the highest rate of patient bed occupancy at 95 per cent. The expected rapid growth and ageing of the Irish population is projected to increase demand for hospital care further. This means that in the coming years there will be an even greater need to increase the number of available hospital beds. This paper employs the ESRI HIPPOCRATES healthcare projection model to project the number of public and private hospital beds that may be required between 2015 and 2030. Importantly, in developing these projections we take into account the ability to move care to non-hospital settings

A profile of physiotherapy supply in Ireland. ESRI Research Bulletin, 2018/05

Physiotherapy is an important therapy service that is provided in acute (hospitals) and in non-acute (primary and community care, nursing homes etc.) settings. In order to understand where resources are most needed, policymakers need information on how many physiotherapists are working in Ireland and where they are located. However, there is a lack of information on acute and non-acute physiotherapy supply in Ireland across public and private settings, owing largely to the absence of a comprehensive central register. This makes it difficult not only to compare the availability of physiotherapists across counties in Ireland, but also to examine Irish supply in an international context. This paper quantifies the total supply of physiotherapists working in Ireland, disaggregated by their setting (acute and non-acute) and sector (public and private). In cases where individual physiotherapists work in different settings and sectors, we apportion their workload accordingly. This paper also estimates for each county the number of non-acute physiotherapists working in the community to find out where there is a low supply of therapists

Does formal home care reduce inpatient length of stay? ESRI Research Bulletin 202029 November 2020.

New research examines whether patients from regions in Ireland with a higher supply of home care spent less time in hospital as inpatients. In addition, the study tested whether the relationship is stronger for those with very long lengths of stay or who may be particularly suited to using home care

An analysis of the effects on Irish hospital care of the supply of care inside and outside the hospital

New ESRI research, funded by the Health Research Board, finds that older people are discharged from hospital more quickly in areas with more home care and residential care services

Geographic profile of healthcare needs and non-acute healthcare supply in Ireland.

There is an unequal supply of health and social care across counties in Ireland, according to new ESRI research funded by the Health Research Board (HRB). It finds that the commuter counties of Kildare, Meath and Wicklow had the lowest supply overall of ten primary, community and long-term care services examined by the research. This could impede proposed Sláintecare proposals to move more care from hospitals to the community