Over 150 GPs have signed up to a new service where doctors can consult with cardiologists, if they see signs of heart failure in a patient.
The virtual clinic allows GPs to discuss cases with specialists, and reduce the need for outpatient referrals.
It's one of the programmes to receive money from the government's Sláintecare Integration Fund.
Director of the Heart Failure Unit at St Vincent's Hospital in Dublin, Professor Ken McDonald, says people who have been helped, would have otherwise ended up on waiting lists:
"Its a real time online consultation between the general practitioner and a specialist to deal with a problem. These are problems that ordinarily would have gone onto that long waiting list that the minister has mentioned. We have shown that by this type of consultation in excess of 90% of these contacts no longer needs to come into the hospital system."
