South Korea’s vice finance minister said Wednesday that the nation’s healthcare data combined with information and communications technology will have a “dynamic effect” on the economy.
“With the passage of three data-related bills last year, enactment of the Data Framework Act and pursuit of the data dam project has allowed us to secure a systematic platform to enter a data economy,” Vice Finance Minister Lee Eog-won said in a press conference for healthcare data development.
“We must now make efforts to help launch businesses utilizing data across every sector including finance and healthcare,” he added.
Lee’s remarks come as the government has been focusing on data usage development for key sectors including healthcare.
As part of its efforts, it drafted the so-called three data-related bills, which the National Assembly passed in January last year. The bills intended to enable the use of personal information offered under aliases for compiling statistics and industrial research.
The government-led data dam project, meanwhile, aims to collect information from public and private sectors to create useful data and releases the data across all industries. The Ministry of Science and ICT and NIA, or the National Information Society Agency seeks to set up big data centers jointly with the private sector as part of the project.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare has said the value of Korean healthcare data amounts to an annual 2 trillion won ($1.6 billion).
“Healthcare data is not only the core infrastructure for our citizen’s personal healthcare, but an important national asset that could bring an innovative future for our industries,” Lee said.
“With our state-of-the-art medical technology combined with ICT capacity, our potential is limitless and the effects will be dynamic.”
