Data Transformation: Boosting Health Research in Northern Ireland

August 25, 2025 · CARA MARSHALL

Northern Ireland is making giant strides in transforming its health and social care system through cutting-edge data infrastructure and patient-driven research. This ambitious innovation agenda is unlocking new opportunities to improve public health, influence policy, and position the region as a leader in digital health.

The transformation stems from an ambitious shift from outdated, manual data access methods to a fully integrated digital landscape. A foundation to this revolution is the Encompass electronic health record (EHR) rollout. Led by Professor Michael Quinn, this initiative is pioneering, making Northern Ireland the first devolved nation to comprehensively combine health and social care records. This clear approach provides unique, vital insight into entire acute and community clinical pathways, dramatically enhancing understanding of care delivered and patient outcomes.

As well as that, the development of the NI Trusted Research Environment (NITRE), driven by collaboration and the HDR UK network, provides a secure and powerful platform for researchers. As Professor Mark Lawler, Professor of Digital Health at Queen's University Belfast, explains, the goal is to fully leverage the region’s extensive longitudinal records, which are arguably the best in the UK, for research purposes.

The NITRE is a secure platform that enables approved researchers to access and analyse anonymised, fully integrated, longitudinal primary and secondary care data. Placing NITRE within the region’s Health and Social Care (HSC) Data Institute ensures that research is conducted efficiently and ethically. This secure data infrastructure means that the important research work being done is directly translating into real-world benefits, influencing policy, and working for patients across the region. Dr Frances Burns, HDR UK Co-Lead for Northern Ireland, has been instrumental in shaping and promoting NITRE’s development, highlighting that “NITRE promotes safe data use with clear patient benefit, fostering data innovation to meet HSC needs and priorities.”

We congratulate Professor Mark Lawler and Professor Michael Quinn for their leadership and important contributions to the Encompass and Trusted Research Environment initiatives. Their work is fundamentally reshaping the future of health data research in Northern Ireland.