The Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) and the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (MSIP) will set up a system to support medical information exchange, officials said Wednesday.

It is a part of the government’s project to facilitate public services based on information and communications technologies(ICT).

Patients have had to copy medical information, such as CT and MRI, on CD and deliver them to other hospitals whenever they changed hospitals. And hospitals didn’t know what kinds of examinations and treatment patients had received in previous hospitals.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning said they would push for establishing a support system to promote medical information exchange.

Now the health-welfare ministry has revised related laws and regulations to provide a basis for the electronic transfer of medical data among hospitals.

MOHW_복지부 and MSIP_{미래창조과학부} plan to build infrastructure to manage standardized medical information systems and facilitate exchanges among medical institutions, in preparation for the fourth industrial revolution, the officials said.

Firstly, they will build up the exchange system of medical information in electronic form, by using 2 billion won ($1.7 million) from the MSIP budget, for 600 hospitals and clinics in Busan.

In the second half of this year, Chungnam National University Hospital and Chonnam National University Hospital will set up a new system to exchange medical information with 400 regional hospitals and clinics, using MOHW’s budget of 2.4 billion won.

“We hope the hospitals will provide convenient health care services to people through information exchange among them and create new and various services based on data,” said Kang Do-tae, director-general of Healthcare Policy Bureau at MOHW, and Jang Seok-young, director-general of Internet Convergence Policy at MSIP.

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