ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL COVID-19 pandemic facilitates hospitals' digitization

By Bahk Eun-ji

For patients with an infectious disease such as COVID-19, receiving proper, timely treatment is of the utmost importance. Amid the prolonged pandemic, people around the country are becoming anxious about the national healthcare system as various problems have come to light.

In fact, during the pandemic, the existing medical system revealed limitations such as insufficient number of hospital beds and shortage of medical personnel. When the country's new virus cases were increasing at alarming rates, with patients in critical condition on an upward path in August, voices calling for improvements to the medical system have been gaining momentum.

In this regard, digital transformation is rapidly being introduced throughout society. Hospitals, one of the important parts of social infrastructure, cannot be left out. While working with tech companies to improve work efficiency, digitization of medical technology is also being promoted towards a vision for “smart hospitals”.

Smart hospitals have emerged as an alternative to the medical system. They are hospitals where patients can receive medical treatment via artificial intelligence (AI) without direct interaction with health professionals, which can help to solve the medical staff shortage.

Although medical treatment is automatically conducted by artificial intelligence, final diagnosis and prescription for patients are confirmed via telemedicine consultations with medical staff, to assure proper treatment of patients.

Large hospitals are also collaborating with a number of ICT companies as well.

Asan Medical Center in Seoul recently announced a plan to advance digital transformation in hospitals by joining hands with ICT companies such as KT, Hyundai Robotics and IBM. First of all, KT and Hyundai Robotics will jointly develop solutions for smart hospitals.

Lee Sang-do, president of Asan Medical Center, said, "We have become a hyper-connected society that connects people, things, data and everything through the network.” He continued, “We will establish a smart hospital system accordingly to provide the best treatment for patients.”

This includes “in-house infection control non-face-to-face treatment” that connects patients visiting selected clinics to hospital rooms through video, real-time care (smart patient management) that provides medical services by identifying the location and health condition of inpatients, and “smart logistics management solutions” that automate the management of goods and assets in hospitals based on robotic systems.

The hospital has also pushed for a robotic process automation (RPA) project with IBM. RPA was applied to patient bed assignment, patient reservation registration and medical staff rounds to achieve automation of basic tasks and to increase efficiency. Thanks to this technology, the daily working hours required to process patient hospitalization registrations were reduced by an average of three hours. Not only has the time required to allocate beds been reduced but the efficiency of medical staff doing patient rounds has also increased.

Seoul National University Hospital has employed Microsoft's collaboration solution Teams at its headquarters and hospital networks. The plan is aimed at enhancing the cooperative environment in hospitals and creating standards for non-face-to-face medical services. The hospital explained that the establishment of the Teams system will enhance digital collaboration and facilitate non-face-to-face work in times of crisis.

“After the introduction of the Teams, communication with various branches has become easier, and the frequency of dialogue has naturally increased and unexpected flexibility has been added," said Park Kyung-woo, head of the medical innovation division at Seoul National University Hospital. “It has served as an opportunity to build a digital transition within the hospital.”

Under the Korean New Deal plan pledged by President Moon Jae-in, the government will build smart medical infrastructure that protects medical personnel and patients from the risk of infectious diseases and enhances convenience for patients receiving medical treatment. To this end, the goal is to build 18 smart hospitals by 2025, allowing the real-time monitoring of patients and cooperation among medical institutions based on advance digital technologies such as 5G networks and Internet of Things (IoT).

It also plans to strengthen its infrastructure for non-face-to-face medical pilot projects addressing healthcare for people with chronic diseases, senior citizens and the disabled.

In the middle of July, the Ministry of Science and ICT, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport held a briefing on the Digital New Deal project being pushed by the government, at a time when the country's economic and social structures are being digitally transformed, including the spread of non-face-to-face practices due to the virus outbreak.

In order to create a safe medical environment, respiratory clinics will be established in digitally enhanced smart hospitals and special medical equipment for telemedicine will be installed at regional medical clinics.

Smart hospitals will be equipped with infection prevention facilities such as negative pressure rooms. A reservation system will be applied when the patient's condition is checked and face-to-face treatment is deemed necessary via prior telephone consultation.