|
A patient with angina is admitted to a major hospital in Seoul and looks at the results of his tests through his smartphone as soon as his ECG and blood pressure have been measured. The patient’s medical information is transferred to his doctor on a real-time basis.
This scene reflects a small part of the growing Ubiquitous-Healthcare industry in South Korea even though UHealthcare services are not yet fully operational nationwide. Until now, people in Korea have frequently experienced a lot of inconvenience in both time and expense with having to undergo repeated tests, prescriptions and medical certifications when they move from one hospital to another.
According to recent data from the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Services, hospital convalescence costs amounted to 39.4 trillion won ($35.2 billion). The combination of IT with healthcare is emerging as one of the ways to tackle this huge cost burden. In fact, in some advanced countries, including Japan, governments are already operating or investing in systems similar to UHealthcare.
Against this backdrop, Korea’s U-Healthcare, including telemedicine, is drawing keen attention as an effective way to help people save both time and money. Given Korea’s leading IT technology and advanced medical equipment sector, some experts say that the country’s entry into UHealthcare is relatively late.
In fact, the U-Healthcare services have been confined to provide healthcare service for remote island inhabitants or blood sugar monitoring of diabetic patients.
With U-Healthcare relying on sensors in digital devices, such as cell phones or IPTV, people can have a checkup and receive medical advice wherever they are. As a global IT industry leader, Korea is entering a period when people will be able to check their blood pressure, blood sugar and heart rate by simply wearing “health wear” and receive information about drugs by touching a cell phone to the electronic tags of medicine.
However, U-Healthcare still has a lot of work and challenges ahead to succeed. First of all, many healthcare institutions have been slow to migrate to automation and invest in Ubiquitous technologies because of their lack of understanding of U Healthcare’s strategic framework and the tremendous cost of major system planning and implementation in utilizing Ubiquitous technologies.
Also, some experts point out that the relationship between patients and physicians that has been normally close and very personal in the traditional health care system needs to be quite open for the U-Healthcare services to take root. In some degree, the Internet and Ubiquitous technologies are set to change this relationship for the better, ensuring more benefits and opportunities.
Some data demonstrate that U-Healthcare investments have reduced the cost of doing business. Considering that Korea’s medical equipment market estimated at 4 trillion won ($3.5billion) is expected to grow by 10% every year, it is natural that the industry professionals predict that the pie will be getting larger, inducing the nation’s top companies like Samsung, LG and Hyundai to enter the market to dominate it in advance.
To accelerate U-Healthcare, called a dream medical system, the Ministry of Health and Welfare of the Korean government is drafting a bill to be enacted called “Healthcare Management Services,” which permits nurses and nutritionist as well as doctors to provide physical condition, lifestyle improvement, nutritional & exercise programs and other healthcare services to patients and the general public.
|
Other Articles
