The government should establish a state-run body to efficiently manage big data for the healthcare industry, an expert said.
“There should be an integrated system to collect data from various institutions and manage them,” Professor Lee Joong-won이중원 at the department of philosophy at University of Seoul said Wednesday in a debate at the Westin Chosun on Wednesday.
“The government has to make a ‘healthcare big data center.’”
Lee said the currently operating Open Data Strategy Council(ODSC)공공데이터전략위원회 and the Personal Information Protection Commission(PIPC)개인정보보호위원회 only focus on information protection and management, not directly involving in the use of data and authentication.
“In England, a public organization HISCIC (Health and Social Care Information Centre) is in charge of the whole process from producing and opening healthcare big data to decision-making. Through HISCIC, institutions share data and spread knowledge. The center provides a clear guideline about information protection as well,” Lee explained.
“France has a national healthcare information system to make use of healthcare data for researches, education and assessment. The two countries have government-level bodies to manage healthcare data,” he said.
He said if the Korean government establishes such body, it will be able to efficiently coordinate healthcare data, which is sporadically managed at various public institutions now.
Lee urged the government to use such center to draw up phased strategies to link personal information with healthcare data.
Jang Dong-kyung장동경, professor at School of Medicine of Sungkyunkwan University, shared a similar view.
Jang said public institutions should be able to collect healthcare data, as well as to protect personal information.
“The government has to manage data used in the medical field. A government body should be tasked with reproducing clinical information as public data for research and industrial purposes,” said Jang.
Lee Sang-wook이상욱, professor at the department of philosophy at Hanyang University, said meaningful results can be induced when different kinds of big data are intercrossed.
“We have to make a management organization to integrate information collected and processed in different organizations, based on different standards. And its operation has to be transparent to get public trust," he said.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW)보건복지부 has a careful stance on the issue.
“We will hold public hearings and forums to collect opinions from different walks of life and have discussions in the ministry to move forward with the issue,” said Park Mi-ra박미라, director at the bioethics policy division of the ministry.