Initially, software certification/accreditation was intended to be voluntary to assure GPs that their software provided the necessary functions for operating.
However, the HSE requires that vendors undertake accreditation before integrating with bodies like Healthlink, Healthmail, PCRS, and the DEASP. These groups have limited resources to provide integration and expect a complete GP practice management software standard before starting integration.
Therefore, testing is carried out in two phases: pre- and post-integration. Before integration can commence with the HSE, the software needs to have the basic modules of a GP practice management system.
For pre-integration testing, proposed vendors are not required to invest in secondary processes like having an escrow process in place, drug interaction software, etc. These fields will be assessed in the post-integration testing phase.
Three of these systems, Health One, Helix Practice Manager and Socrates, are owned by the Clanwilliam Group.
These four GP practice software systems are accredited using the 2022 Standard, as detailed in the document below.
A voluntary accreditation process, managed by the National General Practice Information Technology (GPIT) Group, will confirm that these functions are available in GP Practice Software Systems that have previously attained basic certification under the Requirements for Certification 2022 standard.