In an era of increased life expectancy and real-time health data monitoring, we explore whether South Korea can innovate in healthcare by protecting privacy and strengthening its big data analytics capabilities, and how the government and private sector can work together to address the challenges.
Imagine the following. Life expectancy for all humans has now surpassed 100 years. You wake up, check your smartphone, and chips embedded in your body measure your pulse, blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol levels in real time. These readings are immediately transmitted to a big data analytics center and forwarded to your primary care physician. Based on decades of data, your doctor will be able to see if there are any abnormalities in today’s readings and provide you with appropriate health advice. It doesn’t stop there. Throughout the day, the chip inside your body continues to measure your health levels and prepare for possible emergencies. If there are any signs of a heart attack or stroke, the chip will immediately detect it and notify your doctor, who will then order you to come to the hospital quickly.
But how close have we come to fulfilling this fantasy? In the U.S., which is leading the way in big data, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is analyzing the electronic medical records of 22 million veterans to provide personalized healthcare. In addition, IBM and WellPoint, a U.S. health insurance company, have developed a program called Watson that analyzes clinical trials and best treatment practices to suggest the best treatment for patients. Korea is also at the stage of applying big data to healthcare. According to “Efficient Utilization of Big Data in Health and Welfare,” published in the Health and Welfare Forum, research is underway to identify the causes of suicide in Korea through big data analysis and to detect suicide risk signs in advance. In addition, a program is being developed to predict disease outbreaks by analyzing health insurance data from the National Health Insurance Service and social media information using big data. However, with Korea’s current methods of managing personal information and the government’s passive policies, it is unlikely that Korea will reach the level of the U.S. healthcare big data industry, or even the level of complete control over individual health through big data analysis. Both the private sector and the government, the two pillars that will lead the healthcare big data industry in the future, need to make innovative changes. The private sector must dramatically improve its privacy and big data analytics capabilities.
Collecting and analyzing one’s biometric data to prepare for unfortunate events is certainly a good thing, but what happens if the information is not properly protected and easily leaked? The problem is that such data breaches are common in Korea. In 2014, just three years ago, more than 140 million personal information was stolen from three credit card companies – KB, Lotte, and NH – and in March of the same year, all three of Korea’s leading mobile carriers – LG U+, SKT, and KT – failed to prevent a data breach. If the financial sector and telecommunications companies are unable to protect even basic customer personal information, there is no way our medical information is safe. In 2015, it was reported that 4.7 billion cases of patient information such as personal information, disease names, and medication names of patients who used hospitals and pharmacies nationwide were leaked and sold to a U.S.-based statistics company. In the U.S., medical insurance information is said to be traded for at least $50 to $1,000 per case due to its scarcity and utility. While the private sector is not currently active in big data analytics in healthcare, it will have to take the lead at some point. A prerequisite for this is thorough security measures against data breaches. Private companies and organizations should not rely on customers or individuals to secure their personal information, but should work to improve their information protection and hacking prevention technologies. Governments should also encourage these efforts to build private sector capacity to protect information.
In addition to preparing for personal information leakage, the private sector lacks the manpower, technology, and infrastructure to analyze big data, so if the government rushes to promote the big data industry in the healthcare sector, it could end up helping foreign companies monopolize healthcare-related information in Korea. According to a 2012 report by the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology, foreign companies such as IBM and Oracle have captured the initial market in Korea’s business and public sector big data processing. Opening up healthcare data to the private sector without institutional mechanisms to prevent foreign companies from entering the market could lead to foreign companies monopolizing big data. Furthermore, if foreign companies have access to Korea’s healthcare data without clear regulations or agreements on data ownership, as is currently the case, we may have to pay them to access or use the results of our analysis. As such, the private sector’s ability to utilize big data is not competitive in terms of data protection and data analytics, so it is difficult to expect big data to be actively utilized in the healthcare sector.
What can governments do? While the government has taken the initiative to revitalize the big data industry in healthcare in the United States and the United Kingdom, Korea has been slow to take the lead. The U.S. recognized the potential of big data to solve national challenges early on, and announced a $200 million Big Data R&D Initiative involving various government ministries. Based on this initiative, it has started to secure core technologies and cultivate human resources related to big data early. Developed countries such as the United Kingdom and Japan are also actively promoting policies to grow the big data industry at the national level. Korea should also establish and implement such government-led policies. Just as the government led the industrialization of the Korean economy in the 1970s, the government should recognize the potential of the healthcare big data industry and provide full support to grow the industry.
Furthermore, to ensure that the government’s healthcare big data is actively utilized, it should promote data integration projects among public institutions, and a single organization should decide whether to disclose and provide data and consistently evaluate the potential for creating new value. Currently, healthcare big data is managed individually by various government ministries such as the Ministry of Health and Welfare, Ministry of Employment and Labor, Ministry of Knowledge Economy, Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, and Korea Statistics Service, as well as numerous public institutions such as the National Health Insurance Service, Health Insurance Review and Evaluation Service, and national research institutes. As of May 2013, there were 1,721 types of public information available on the shared resource portal (www.data.go.kr), of which only 21 types of healthcare information and 29 types of welfare information. However, it is difficult to link data in this way, so it is necessary to build a single healthcare data linkage platform to integrate and provide relevant data. Through this, the government can proactively utilize big data and create a national knowledge platform to study how to better link and use stored data even if there is no demand for big data. It will also be able to collect relevant data and commission research from the private sector.
The establishment of a new ministry for big data will allow for unified review standards and management that will allow for the use of big data. If each ministry manages and operates big data separately, as is the case now, permission must be obtained from each ministry to utilize big data, and there are different standards for each ministry, or related laws and systems need to be improved. Currently, the Medical Act and the Bioethics and Safety Act permit the use of big data in very limited cases, but in the long run, deregulation, abolition, or enactment of new laws should be made to ensure that big data can be used for public purposes in the healthcare sector. In addition, the establishment of a ministry for big data could create a single entity that can determine public interest use, evaluate the public interest of healthcare big data use, and ensure that health information is used only for purposes that promote the public interest. The ministry could also create institutional mechanisms to prevent individuals from having their unwanted information collected. It will act as an organization that sets and enforces standards to ensure that only necessary information is collected to prevent private or public organizations from collecting personal information indiscriminately.
The applications of big data in healthcare are endless, and as IBM’s Watson example shows, big data can be used to improve the health of the population. However, there are many hurdles for the private sector and government to overcome in order for Korea to reach this level. First, the private sector must develop information protection technologies and big data analysis capabilities, and the government must guide and encourage the private sector to make these efforts. In addition, governments should take the lead in building big data in healthcare, bringing together information scattered across government departments and linking healthcare information from the private sector to improve data connectivity. Developed countries have already recognized the potential of big data and are actively supporting its use. Although it’s late, it’s time for us to start laying the groundwork now.
