The Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Korea Health Information Service (KHIS) said they will recruit corporations to participate in the "medical artificial intelligence (AI) data utilization voucher support project" from the 10th to the 16th of next month to promote the safe use of medical data.
The project centers on supporting data processing and analysis expense so that small and midsize enterprises and startups in the medical AI field can develop products or services using the clinical data of medical data-centered hospitals designated by the ministry.
Medical data-centered hospitals refer to 43 medical institutions (seven consortia) that receive government support to use clinical data accumulated at medical institutions for research and development.
The support targets about 40 small and midsize enterprises and startups that develop and operate products and services using AI technology based on medical data.
The support scale is 320 million won for large projects (10), 160 million won for medium projects (10), and 80 million won for small projects (20). This is about 80% of the project unit cost, and the corporations' contribution will be around 20% of the project unit cost (15% for small corporations, 25% for medium corporations).
Selected corporations will sign agreements with medical data-centered hospitals and, according to the terms, receive support in the form of vouchers for expense needed for data processing and analysis.
An official at the ministry said, "This year, we plan to expand support and select around 40 corporations, about five times more than the eight corporations last year," and noted, "To expand participation by medical institutions outside the capital region, we decided to reflect this in the selection evaluation."
The ministry expects that, through the expansion of this project, cooperation between corporations and medical institutions will be strengthened, improving the accuracy and effectiveness of medical AI products, and increasing medical data use cases that the public can feel.
Details on how to apply can be found on the K-CURE website.