Government Announces Digital Innovation Strategy in Healthcare
Expectations for Overseas Market Expansion Following Domestic Activation
As the government announced the 'Digital Innovation Strategy in the Medical Field,' the stock prices of Bit Computer, Infinite Healthcare, and Ubicare are rising. Improvements allowing patients living in medically vulnerable time zones such as holidays and nighttime during the Lunar New Year holiday, or in emergency medical vulnerable areas, to use telemedicine even without face-to-face consultation experience are expected to increase investment in related fields.
At 10:46 a.m. on the 1st, Bit Computer was trading at 9,430 KRW, up 28.3% from the previous day. Infinite Healthcare and Ubicare are also expanding their gains. Previously, stock prices tended to move in relation to telemedicine policies. Recently, the government strongly expressed its intention to enhance convenience for medical institution use despite some opposition and to enable citizens to receive customized health care anytime and anywhere, which is interpreted as the reason for the stock price reaction.
Telemedicine was temporarily allowed during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 but was discontinued afterward. Since June last year, a telemedicine pilot project has been conducted to enable more citizens to receive timely medical services.
President Yoon Suk-yeol said, "The telemedicine issue has been approached largely as a conflict of interest between the medical community and patients/consumers using the service," adding, "Telemedicine should be viewed from the perspective of digitalizing medical services and as part of the global competitiveness of Korea's medical services." He continued, "I have repeatedly emphasized that it is important to grow the industry to achieve administrative goals through telemedicine."
The Ministry of Health and Welfare plans to promote 'activation of telemedicine,' which allows medical services regardless of time and place, and to expand the platform 'Health Information Highway,' where individuals can check their medical information.
Bit Computer is a healthcare specialist company with the No. 1 market share in domestic medical information and the top record in remote medical system construction. It has established remote medical systems in over 1,000 overseas institutions, including Thailand, Mongolia, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates, Cambodia, and the Amazon River hospital ship in Brazil. Last year, it launched the EMR-linked telemedicine platform service 'BaroDoctor.'
Infinite Healthcare is the No. 1 company in the domestic PACS market. It was the first in Korea to release a solution combining a medical data integration platform (VNA) and artificial intelligence (AI) technology. It is developing next-generation solutions that support medical institutions in utilizing this data to provide AI diagnosis and patient-tailored treatment.
According to quarterly reports, Infinite Healthcare maintains an incomparable gap in research and development (R&D) scale, resulting technology, and service aspects compared to competitors. It has held the No. 1 market share in the domestic PACS market for a long time. Based on the status of hospitals registered with the Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service, it maintains an overwhelming market share of 75% in tertiary general hospitals and 70% in general hospitals.
The telemedicine market size is expected to grow to $22.48 billion (approximately 30 trillion KRW) by 2030, with an average annual growth rate of 18.8%, influenced by the 2020 pandemic. The regional market size for telemedicine is formed in the order of North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East & Africa.
The industry expects that considering domestic related technology and medical staff levels, overseas market entry will also be possible once telemedicine is fully launched. Recently, the Bit Computer and Inorules consortium won the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) project for 'Digitalization of Health Insurance Review Procedures and Establishment of a Telemedicine Platform for Vulnerable Groups in Peru.'
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