Digital appointment letters for the HSE
Replace posted letters with digitally generated appointment letters — delivered by email from hsebook.ie or accessible to patients via a secure portal link. Built on the DiaryBook platform already used by over 2,500 HSE staff.
The cost of post
The most expensive part of patient communication
Every appointment letter the HSE sends by post costs at minimum €1.80 in postage — before printing, envelopes, and staff handling time. At some hospitals, the annual cost of posting appointment letters exceeds €100,000.
Posted letters are slow, expensive, and give patients no easy way to respond. The appointment letter is the first point of contact with the patient — and in most HSE services, it's still entirely paper-based.
Two services
One add-on. Two ways to use it.
Service one
Digital Letter Delivery
- Auto-generate PDF letters from customisable templates
- Append supporting documents from the appointment type
- Review and release — governance built in
- Deliver from a branded hsebook.ie email address
Service two
Patient Portal at hsebook.ie
- Secure link via SMS or email
- Appointment details and related documents
- Confirm, cancel, or request changes
- Solves multi-appointment SMS reply ambiguity
Adopt either or both — there is no dependency between the two services.
The financial case
A cost reduction, not a cost
A hospital posting 55,000 appointment letters a year spends over €100,000 in postage alone. Shifting just 50% to digital delivery saves approximately €50,000 per year — before counting the administrative time freed up. HSEBOOK costs a fraction of the saving. The payback is immediate.