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Seoul Nat’l Hospital-SKT consortium exports medical IT system

Seoul Nat’l Hospital-SKT consortium exports medical IT system

Posted July. 01, 2014 06:27,   

한국어

A hospital information system developed by the Koran medical and IT industries has been sold to other country at around 70 billion won (692 U.S. dollars) for the first time. The export is expected to prove the excellence of the Korean medical information system and to help expand sales to other markets.

The Bundang Seoul National University Hospital–SK Telecom consortium said on Monday that it signed an export contract for the hospital information system and a framework agreement for a joint venture with Saudi Arabia’s Defense Ministry on Sunday. Under the agreements, the hospital and the telecom company will build an information system for a total of 3,000 beds in six military hospitals of the Saudi Defense Ministry for the next two years. The system will manage all administrative work ranging from patient information, insurance, medical records, equipment to human resource information. The system was developed by Bundang Seoul National Hospital and ezCaretech, a medical IT service provider, and the hospital has the ownership. SK Telecom will conduct a local market survey and global marketing in Saudi Arabia. The working-level staff of the consortium will be sent to Saudi Arabia and start building a system next month.

The consortium will also create a joint venture with the Saudi Arabian Defense Ministry and launch a project to export a hospital information system in countries in the Middle East. Both sides expect to rake in at least 300 billion won (296.5 million dollars) in revenues for the next five years.

Korea’s large hospital system began to enter Saudi Arabia as former Health and Welfare Minister Jin Young signed the “agreed minutes for health and medical cooperation” costing up to one trillion won (988 million dollars) in September last year. “We were highly rated for the combination of Korea’s best hospital and telecom company,” a source from the consortium said. “As the contract was signed in a short period of time, beating other U.S. and European companies that were mentioned as candidates, Saudi Arabia is highly interested in our system.”

Lee Chul-hee, president of Bundang Seoul National University Hospital, said, “The Middle East is an arena for competition among global IT companies. The success of this deal means a lot.” SK Telecom CEO Ha Seong-min said, “The healthcare industry is an important new growth engine for SK Telecom. We will aggressively pioneer the market with our technology and marketing experiences.”

“We’re discussing multiple export contracts in Saudi Arabia,” said Jeong Ho-won, head of the Global Healthcare Division at the Health and Welfare Ministry. “We expect this export deal would have a positive impact on other deals. If implemented as planned, we expect to achieve nearly 280 billion won (276.8 million dollars) in export.”

The Bundang Seoul National University Hospital-SK Telecom consortium is also said to have been asked about the possibility of cooperation in medical information from companies from Europe, Southeast Asia and China.