Minister Jung Eun-kyeong of the Ministry of Health and Welfare visited Bundang Seoul National University Hospital in Seongnam, Gyeonggi, on the 17th and held a roundtable with national university hospital presidents on the theme of "expanding public health care artificial intelligence."
At the event, heads of regional responsible medical institutions, including Seoul National University Hospital, Bundang Seoul National University Hospital, Kyungpook National University Hospital, and Chonbuk National University Hospital, attended. Each hospital shared cases of using medical artificial intelligence based on its own informationization asset.
At the roundtable, a consensus formed on the need to standardize data across hospitals and establish governance. Participants in particular proposed that the government support computing resources such as GPUs (graphics processing units) needed for artificial intelligence training and use.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare launched the "basic medical artificial intelligence task force" in Feb. and is preparing a "basic medical artificial intelligence strategy" with the goal of announcing it in the first half of the year. The plan is to strengthen care coordination among primary, secondary, and tertiary medical institutions using artificial intelligence and reduce regional disparities in health care. The government describes this as building a "public health care artificial intelligence highway."
The Minister said, "Artificial intelligence is a key driver for resolving regional health care disparities and gaps in essential and public health care," and added, "We will reflect in the strategy the tasks discussed at the roundtable, including building a cooperative framework, financial support, and regulatory easing."