(SEOUL) On March 29, the Embassy of Denmark in Korea hosted a seminar to mark the launch of the ‘Denmark-Korea Hospital Alliance’ at the Danish Ambassador’s Residence in Seongbuk-gu, Seoul.
The Denmark-Korea Hospital Alliance is an international collaboration between Denmark and Korea’s largest hospitals, the Danish Ministry for Health, Danish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, and Healthcare Denmark, a public-private non-profit partnership that promotes Danish healthcare solutions. The purpose of the alliance is to further strengthen the existing bilateral partnership and to facilitate the sharing of knowledge and experiences between key stakeholders within the health sector of the two countries.
Eight hospitals have currently signed up for the alliance and the goal is to continue to expand the network by inviting more hospitals and healthcare companies in the future. From Korea, current alliance members include Gangnam Severance Hospital, Hallym University Sacred Heart Hospital, Korea University Anam Hospital, National Health Insurance Service Ilsan Hospital, and Seoul National University Bundang Hospital. From Denmark, member hospitals include Aalborg University Hospital, Aarhus University Hospital, and the Rigshospitalet (Copenhagen University Hospital).
The seminar on Wednesday focused on the best way forward for this alliance, including ways for tangible and substantial cooperation, focusing on smart hospital solutions. The first session of the seminar was a presentation by Healthcare Denmark that introduced Denmark’s ‘super hospital’ project, which aims to digitalize the technology and infrastructure at hospitals. Following sessions covered specific areas of interest for collaboration among hospitals including automation, AI-powered diagnostic software, healthcare robots, telemedicine, and looked at various Danish health tech solutions.
An official at the Embassy of Denmark in charge of coordinating this event said, “Both Denmark and Korea are currently undergoing a transformation in their public healthcare sector, digitalizing major hospitals to improve the effectiveness and the quality of the medical services provided to patients. The Denmark-Korea Hospital Alliance will serve as a foundation for mutual knowledge exchange and collaboration, which will allow for the development of advanced medical models in both our countries. Such bilateral cooperation is expected to contribute to greatly enhancing the safety, sustainability, and effectiveness of the medical services provided to citizens of Denmark and Korea.”
The launching event on Wednesday was well attended by health authorities and key industry officials from both countries. From Korea, a number of representatives from the member hospitals was in attendance, including Executive Director Yoon Hee-Sung of the Hallym University Medical Center and President Kim Seongwoo of the National Health Insurance Service Ilsan Hospital. From Denmark, representatives from healthcare authorities and industry joined Permanent Secretary Svend Særkjær of the Danish Ministry of Interior and Health and CEO Jakob Skaarup Nielsen of Healthcare Denmark in attending the seminar online.
Denmark's super hospital project, which shares many similarities to Korea’s ‘smart hospital’ project, aims to invest in, and establish, smart medical technology and infrastructure in 16 major medical institutions in Denmark. The project has been underway since 2021 with the goal of reducing the number of days of patient hospitalization and re-admissions, while improving outpatient care and increasing the sustainability of the healthcare system by providing faster and more accurate diagnoses.
Similarly, Korea’s own Ministry of Health and Welfare has been implementing a smart hospital project that aims to utilize ICT technology to upgrade 18 major hospitals to highly digitized smart hospitals to strengthen patient safety and improve the quality of medical care. (END)
