With cancer a leading cause of death in Korea, the government plans to harness the power of big data to tackle the disease by increasing information sharing among healthcare institutions to bolster diagnosis, treatment, and research.
At a meeting of the Korea Cancer Association held in June, the Ministry of Health and Welfare announced plans to build a clinical data utilization network by collecting and consolidating data on 3 million Korean cancer patients in a state-of-the-art database.
In establishing a big data repository of information on cancer, Korea aims to capitalize on its already robust nationwide, hospital-based cancer registry, known as the Korea Central Cancer Registry (KCCR), established in 1980 by the Ministry.
By utilizing advanced, cloud-based data technologies, Korean officials hope to use data accumulated by hospitals and other institutions to establish genomic information data sets and other advanced information sources that could be used in joint research by institutions around the country.