Korea’s health care is characterized by its well-developed ICT (Information-Communication Technology) infrastructure. In response to the Asian financial crisis in 1997, the Korean government prepared for the future by developing the ICT industry. ICT combined with medicine has created many advances in Korea.
ICT has not always been a positive influence on medicine. The ease of information processing increased the risk of privacy information being leaked. Also, greater protection of medical information such as genetic information and medical records is needed. Accordingly, the Korean government implemented the Personal Information Protection Act in 2009 and the medical field started to encrypt resident registration numbers of subjects with personal identification numbers so that the resident registration number would not be exposed when research data is provided. All information originating from a subject including not just genes but also blood and body fluids is defined as “human-derived material” and placed under extremely strict control by the IRB.
The government has announced that it plans to promote U-healthcare and develop it as the next generation medical service and corporations are also preparing for another wave of growth for the ICT industry. On the other hand, the medical field holds its reservations due to potential issues such as patient safety, clinical efficacy, liability of misdiagnosis, and the implication that ICT would bring to practice of physicians. This presentation will introduce the current status and future outlook of ICT in health care in Korea and discuss relevant issues.
Footnotes
*1 This article is base on a presentation made at the Symposium “Health Database in an Information Society” held at the 29th CMAAO General Assembly and 50th Council Meeting, Manila, the Philippines, on September 24-26, 2014.