Seoul Asan, Yonsei Severance Consortium Among 5 Selected
Ministry of Health and Welfare Launches Support Project for Health Care Data Hub Hospitals
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[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Dae-yeol] A government-supported project to utilize clinical big data held by major domestic hospitals for developing new diagnostic and treatment methods, new drugs, and medical devices is being actively promoted.
On the 24th, the Ministry of Health and Welfare held a kickoff meeting for the "Health and Medical Data-Centered Hospital" support project at the Korea Health and Medical Information Service. This project aims to improve treatment technologies or support research such as new drug development by utilizing the vast clinical data held by large hospitals. Previously, a public contest was held targeting medium to large medical institutions with a cumulative patient count exceeding 1 million and research capabilities, resulting in the selection of Busan National University Hospital, Samsung Seoul Hospital, Seoul National University Hospital, Asan Medical Center, and Yonsei Severance Hospital (each serving as the lead hospital of their respective consortiums) as participating institutions.
Each consortium has a cumulative patient count ranging from 7 million to as many as 13 million. Besides different large hospitals, pharmaceutical and bio companies, associations and organizations, data-related companies, and research institutions participated in each consortium. A total of 25 hospitals and 38 companies and institutions are involved across the five consortiums. Each consortium plans to introduce or reinforce IT equipment and hire specialized personnel. Each hospital receives support of 1.6 billion KRW.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare explained, "The core foundation of medical technology innovation is data. Korea's large hospitals possess vast clinical data exceeding the population size of countries like Finland, which has 5.56 million people. The quality and scope of medical data are excellent, and if big data is well utilized, it holds great potential for developing new drugs for rare and intractable diseases and for medical artificial intelligence development."
Through this project, the government plans to first activate innovative research based on the clinical data each hospital already holds, while establishing a foundation for linking medical data in the long term. Major research tasks in various fields include discovering cancer biomarkers using medical data, evaluating the potential for re-approval of non-anticancer drugs' anticancer effects using artificial intelligence, developing a big data-based early warning system for pediatric intensive care units, and researching severe disease prediction models for premature infants in neonatal intensive care units. About 100 research projects will be conducted going forward.
Additionally, plans to standardize different clinical terminologies used by each institution will be discussed. Along with standardization activities within each consortium, efforts to establish a common standard across all consortiums will be pursued simultaneously. The Korea Health and Medical Information Service will establish and operate a Data Standard Utilization Center to support this project, manage data quality, and provide consultation to help utilize refined and standardized information. Guidelines will also be created to safely use sensitive medical information.
Im In-taek, Director of the Health Industry Policy Bureau at the Ministry of Health and Welfare, said, "This will greatly contribute to improving public health through treatment technology improvements and new drug development research. To create a data-based research ecosystem, we will strengthen support systems so that data-centered hospitals can establish themselves as big data platforms in the private sector and foster data clusters linking industry, academia, research, and hospitals."
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