IBM to Build IT Infrastructure for Electronic Medical Records System in South Korea

Today IBM announced that Soon Chun Hyang University Hospital, a Korean healthcare institution, will use IBM’s smarter computing approach to build the country’s first integrated hospital infrastructure to allow doctors, nurses, clinical laboratories and insurance institutions to patient data in Seoul, Bucheon, ChunAn and Kumi.

The new integrated platform could permit the hospital system to become a regional medical hub, IBM said.

The hospital, which has almost 3,000 beds, expects the hardware and software solutions to help the staff determine and dispense the most appropriate treatments more clearly and quickly than in the past. The new infrastructure will be capable of handling the approximate equivalent of more than 650 billion photos on Facebook, IBM says.Soon Chun Hyang University Hospital, founded in 1972, has locations in the four cities where the project will run, according to the press release, which added that two years ago, Korea’s first electronic medical records project, aimed at enhancing the use of patient data and reducing fragmentation of medical information, was launched.

Under the agreement signed in December 2011, IBM will deliver technologies from processing and storage to virtualization.

IBM Korea was “chosen for this project to create a workload optimized system that was able to support doctors and other health providers in all four locations, and enable them all to work together to improve patient care and accountability.”

Only 63 percent of South Korea’s inhabitants have access to sanitation, but only a little over three percent are obese. Slightly more than 30 percent of the population smokes, the infant mortality rate is one of the highest in the world, 143 out of 179, with 7.18 percent of newborns dying, and life expectancy is pretty close to the U.S., 77.5 years. With electronic medical record systems, it’s hoped the country may be able to keep more people healthy.

“We wanted to provide a powerful platform that made it easier to develop and integrate tools supporting physicians’ decision-making processes,” said Yoon, Soo Keun, managing director at Dongeun Information Technology – IT subsidiary of Soon Chun Hyang University Hospital, in the press release. “The new IBM system will be more efficient and capable to quickly access data stored in many different formats and multiple locations.”

The completion of the new infrastructure will result in a next-generation integrated medical information system called “SU-III Project,” establishing “a single electronic medical records system with a single database,” according to IBM.

IBM’s virtualization technology will facilitate data sharing between the hospital branches more swiftly, “while optimizing system use and keeping costs under control,” according to the company.  When everything is done, the hospital’s IT infrastructure will be managed out of one main medical information center in Bucheon, the press release states.

“Applying advanced technologies in academic hospitals such as Soon Chun Hyang University Hospital holds the potential to turn them into regional healthcare hotspots,” said Lee, Jang Suk, director, IBM Korea. “Going forward with Korea’s first integrated hospital infrastructure system, Soon Chun Hyang University Hospital will pave the way towards smarter healthcare, elevating patient convenience and satisfaction, while delivering better economics.”