Kakao Healthcare enters hospital EHR market with AI-native system

South Korean digital health company Kakao Healthcare has announced plans to develop what it describes as an AI-native electronic health record (EHR) system, according to Medigatenews. The move marks a significant expansion beyond its existing suite of health management products.

The announcement, branded internally as “Project X”, was made by chief executive Hwang Hee at the KIMES medical device and hospital equipment exhibition in Seoul on 19 March. The company said the system is currently in early development, with a team of five engineers having worked on an initial version over roughly two months.

Hwang outlined three defining features of the intended system: hands-free interface operation, a human-in-the-loop structure in which AI performs initial clinical judgements for medical staff to review and amend, and a self-learning capability that continuously evolves using data generated within the hospital environment. He said no EHR system currently meeting all three criteria exists anywhere in the world.

The move is framed as the final component in Kakao Healthcare’s ambition to become a full-stack healthcare IT company. The firm already operates Pasta, an AI-driven chronic disease management app with one million downloads and around 300,000 monthly active users, and CareChat, a hospital concierge service now adopted by approximately 50 university hospitals serving over 680,000 registered users. It has also built a clinical data platform in partnership with 17 major South Korean university hospitals, covering long-term records for an estimated 38 million patients.

An updated version of Pasta, designated Pasta 2.0, is expected to launch in June or July. Hwang said it would introduce blood glucose prediction without a continuous glucose monitor, drawing instead on lifestyle data including diet, sleep, and exercise patterns accumulated across more than 600 million glucose readings.

Hwang acknowledged the scale of the challenge ahead, noting that the project could not be completed by Kakao Healthcare alone and would require collaboration with hospitals, partner companies, and engineers over the next two to three years.