South Korea unveils measures to expand healthcare data use for AI-enabled care

South Korea’s Ministry of Health and Welfare has announced a series of measures to expand the use of healthcare data to support AI-enabled medical services, including plans to integrate hospital clinical data into national platforms, scale bio big data resources, and strengthen the validation of medical AI within healthcare institutions.

The initiatives, discussed by the government’s Healthcare Data Policy Deliberation Committee, form part of a broader effort to position healthcare data as a core input for medical research, AI development, and clinical application, while maintaining safeguards for personal information.

From 2025, clinical data from three national university hospitals will be incorporated into the Healthcare Big Data Platform, which has until now primarily consisted of administrative datasets held by public bodies. The Ministry also plans to encourage secondary use of data generated through national research and development programmes. In parallel, the National Integrated Bio Big Data project is set to expand to 770,000 participants by 2028, with phased data releases scheduled to begin in the second half of 2026.

To support AI training and clinical research, the Ministry said it will develop mechanisms to enable the linkage of healthcare data held by multiple institutions, alongside strengthened governance to protect personal data. Access to data held by medical institutions will also be improved through the use of metadata to connect data providers and users, making it easier for researchers and companies to identify available datasets.

Support for medical AI start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises will be expanded through a significant increase in Healthcare Data Vouchers, rising from eight projects in 2025 to forty in 2026. To reduce friction in data provision, the government plans to introduce standard operating procedures for Institutional Review Boards and Data Review Boards, as well as a joint Data Review Board system.

The Ministry also outlined plans to strengthen the validation of medical AI before clinical adoption. From 2026, twenty new projects will be launched to support systematic evaluation of the performance and effectiveness of medical AI technologies. Healthcare Data-Driven Hospitals will be further developed as integrated platforms for AI research and validation, with additional institutional support aimed at improving regional, essential, and public healthcare services.

Alongside these measures, public agencies will enhance the accessibility and analytical capabilities of the healthcare data they manage. The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency plans to upgrade cloud-based analysis environments and secure graphics processing units by 2026 to enable large-scale remote data processing. The National Cancer Center will expand access to standardised cancer datasets and work towards an interoperable national cancer big data and precision medicine infrastructure.

The National Health Insurance Service plans to expand analysis centres and improve analytical environments within its National Health Insurance Big Data Platform, while the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service will develop low-risk pseudonymised datasets and strengthen training and support for big data utilisation, including for start-ups.

Vice Minister of Health and Welfare Lee Hyung-hoon said the government would strengthen the legal and institutional foundations for the safe use of healthcare data and expand policy support and investment across the full lifecycle of medical AI, from research and validation to real-world deployment, with the aim of building public trust in healthcare data use.