～This page provides national and local public sector healthcare IT news in Japan～

Nikkei newspaper reported there are about 10 patient clinical data sharing networks among hospitals and registered patient rate is only 1 % of all population.

Those networks has been publicly funded ¥53B ($0.47B) between 2009 and 2017 as they may lead more efficient clinical services.

It tells Japan is  far behind Netherlands and United States to disseminate digital patient data sharing, so some non-system approaches will be required to get stakeholder consent, especially patients and doctors, more easily about online patient data sharing among hospitals. 

MHLW  appealed  6 e-health related services in terms of improving productivity in Investing for Future round-table.

They are,

①Patient previous health related data sharing among medical professionals 

②Notification of employees "Health Scoring" to employers 

③Sharing information of patient including medical care needed children for first respondents 

④Providing data for R&D to combine several medical DBs  

⑤Providing date for evidence based long term care

⑥Integrating health exam data and vaccination data between preschool and elementary school ages

MHLW argues these services may support health and medical care providers to provide more timely and efficient services and will lead to productivity boost. 

Cabinet agreed on "declaration of world most advanced IT nation and basic plan for stimulating use of data owned by public and private sectors" substituting for "declaration of world most advanced IT nation" which was agreed May 2016. 8 focused categories are selected including health, medicine and ling term care.
source:  Declaration of world most advanced IT nation and basic plan for stimulation use of data owned by public and private sectors (Japanese only)

Cabinet office published a draft about new national digitizing strategy and require public comment from May 2 to May 11. Draft is focused on digitized data usage of public and private sectors. It only describes outline and cabinet office want any information about international excellent services which are already implemented.

Typical imaging services are presented in attached paper but most of them have been said to be implemented such as personalized health counseling,  assisting care giver using robotics, automatic drug reminder, and interconnected care across health, medicine and long term care field by IT..
source:  Draft about new national digitizing strategy (Japanese only)

MIC announced revitalizing community with ICT award 2016.  2 projects are awarded in healthcare field.
they are,
ーSado community healthcare alliance network, Niigata pref.
ーFukuoka citywide integrated community care info. platform, Fukuoka pref.
The latter is an interactive communication network comprised from several online networks and off line networks intending not depending on EHR. No evidence data concerning effectiveness or efficiencies are disclosed.
The former is just a plan aiming (1)"healthy life expectancy extension", (2)"community economy revitalization" and (3)"public service cost reduction".
The projected data are,
ーAdding 36 billion yen production by achieving (1) and (2)
ーReducing 0.4 billion yen by achieving (1) and (3)
These aims will be achieved by using big data analysis, using SNS for broader information sharing  and    
launching website about services which are not covered by public long term care insurance.
source: Revitalizing community with ICT award 2016  (Japanese only)

MHLW held 2nd discussion group about promotion of using AI technology in healthcare field. The minutes summary of 1st discussion was provided.  The group discussed about "image diagnostic", "general clinical support and genomic medicine", "remote monitoring", "psychiatry"  , "surgery" and others. The group will issue recommendations about target area(s) applying AI technology, promotional activities for technological infrastructure(s), and approaches for securing quality and safety in early 2017.

source: 2nd discussion group about promotion of using AI technology in healthcare field (Japanese only)

MIC granted two local government health related ICT projects through its subsidizing program. Both granted programs are mother-child health information portal implementation projects, proposed by Kainan-city, Wakayama pref. and Oshino-village, Yamanashi pref..

source: ICT Hito, Machi and Shigoto SouseiSuishin program  (Japanese only)

MHLW published report that proposing revision about targeted health check & coaching program.

Targeted health check & coaching program is designed for age from 40 to 74 to contain medical costs by controlling  onset and advance of life style related diseases. Average rate of the targeted health check implementation is  nearly 50% and that of the targeted health coaching is  18%. The latter is far below from the goal rate of 45%. Discussion group for targeted health check & coaching program by insurer made proposals to improve these implementation rates.

Notable proposal is further implementation of tele-counseling in health coaching. Insurer is required to submit action plan in advance to implement tele-counseling for now. Proposal is to withdraw this rule in fiscal 2017.

source: Targeted health check & coaching program revising proposal report (Japanese only)

MHLW published a report for better quality care with big data in expertise discussion group. The report focused in using big data  in national payment organizations for medical billing to check medical billing data more efficient.

But in 4.Using Big Data,  it describes (1) basic understanding about using big data, (2) big data platform and (3) using big data stored in national payment organizations and strengthening insurer's role. These approaches will be performed in "Plan Data Health".

Summaries are below.

(1)basic understanding about using big data

・big data should be comprised with health related data bases of publicly and privately held.

・connecting those data bases will be achieved  by sorting user IDs.

(2)big data platform

・as mandatory insurance member (people) changes his/her insurer along with life-cycle,  insurance member's health/medical related data are stored in insurer's data repositories individually.

・building big data platform by interconnecting these individual data repositories will be an ideal.  

(3)using big data stored in national payment organizations and strengthening insurer's role

・national payment organizations' have health/medical related data of their members but they mostly use them only to check and confirm medical bills today.

・these untapped health/medical data will be analyzed to support financially and medically better outcome.

Report also argued there are many issues to be solved before using big data such as strict data cleansing and  data standardization among systems.

source: report for better quality of care in expertise discussion group (Japanese only)

MHLW established Office for data health program to design, develop and implement nation wide ICT system combining health care, medical care and long term care by 2020. The office has 3 working groups - preventive & health data WG, medical data WG, long term care WG and coordinating big data WG.

Japan medical and health management assessment group announced Joint Declaration for digitized Kenshin data handling through unified approach.

The institution was organized 10 groups in 2010. They are Japan Medical Association, National Federation of Industrial Health Organization, All Japan Hospital Association, Japan Society of Ningen Dock, Japan Association of Health Service, Japan Anti-Tuberculosis Association, Japan Cancer Society, Japan Hospital Association, Japan Society of Health Evaluation and Promotion, and JCAH.

Declaration is as follows.

 　　　　　　　　　Joint Declaration by all members of group

A series of Kenshin are conducting along with life stage of population in Japan.

As these Kenshin data are managed in silos of its conducting entities or government sectors, unified data management has not been achieved yet.

For this reason, every personal health related data across whole life stages are not able to be used its full potential.

Under strict management and control of personal information, lifelong personal health information could be managed by unified way and health support activity from primary to tertiary prevention will have to perform as lifetime health support activity.

To continuously provide better quality health support activity, we, are established for solving Kenshin related issues, make declaration to systematize lifelong health support activity in digital age.

1. Promoting Kenshin data format standardization among Kenshin providers for unified data management of lifetime personal health related information.    

2. Making Kenshin database for lifelong personal health promotion and health management of all population in corporation with medical providers, Kenshin providers and Kenshin related entities.

3. Maintaining “Kenshin　standard format” to make it more useful in partnership with stakeholders.

note: Kenshin includes health examination, health checkup, and diagnostic test.　Addressing scope of our goup are Kenshin for pregnant, infant/little child, student, employee, age over 40, age over 75, and also are cancer test and Ningen dock etc.

source:健診のデータ項目を標準化する健診標準フォーマット検討プロジェクト(Japanese only)

1st Japan Service Award was held and 4 healthcare relate services are selected.

They are,

Keijyu-style regional integrated care service by Keijyu General Hospital, Ishikawa Pref.

Rural medical service by Yu-no-mori, Ehime pref.

Humanity respecting medical service by Kawagoe Gastroenterical Hospital, Saitama pref.

Karada-no-kimochi by Docomo healthcare corp. , Tokyo.

The award was established to support improving productivity of service sector.

So awarded services are assumed good practices of high productivity, although no metrics are disclosed.

source: http://www.meti.go.jp/press/2016/06/20160613002/20160613002.html

Japan National Cabinet released annually revised ICT strategy "Declaration to be the world's most advanced IT nation".

healthcare related initiatives are,

・concrete legal condition for the entity to collect and manage anonymised individual health related data by 2017

・establish PHR use cases through experiment by 2018

・implement online health-related license checking service from 2018

・agree to apply digital technology for more efficient medical claim processing by 2017

source:http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/singi/it2/kettei/pdf/20160520/siryou1.pdf

MHLW and MIC(ministry of internal affairs and communications) released a report titled "models of health ICT in cloud computing era."
The report focuses on use case of PHR(Personal Health Record), although concrete use cases are not described and only to state needed experimental studies will be executed.
Use cases are,
・digitization and unified management between "mother-baby handbook" and health exams. data in schools.
・digitization of occupational health or mucipal health data, and unified management with vital data and dairy life data.
・digitization of handbook for lifestyle related diseases.
・digitization of handbook for elderly care prevention.
・data sharing among medical facilities, medical and care facilities.
source: http://www.soumu.go.jp/menu_news/s-news/01ryutsu02_02000114.html

Regional Economy Vitalization Corporation of Japan (http://www.revic.co.jp/index.html),
an organization established  under REVIC law, has decided to invest to Health Promotion Corporation
(http://kenkou-qol.jp/）through regional healthcare business support fund.
Health Promotion Corporation was established in 2013 to provide services relating to contribute healthy life expectancy.
 

Japan National Cabinet released New ICT strategy "Declaration to be the world's most advanced IT nation".
This is a revised version of which released in May 2015.
4 healthcare related initiatives are set.
・establish legal environment for so-called substitute agency to collect and manage health related big data by 2017.
・establish and promote nation wide implementation of PHR by 2018.
・star project of information system for using medical ID and online check of medical licenses   partially from 2018, whole from 2020.
・set actions for more efficient checking process of medical claims by 2016.
source: http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/singi/it2/kettei/pdf/20150630/siryou1.pdf

MHLW released mid-term policy paper "Japan vision:health care 2035"

report　http://www.mhlw.go.jp/seisakunitsuite/bunya/hokabunya/shakaihoshou/hokeniryou2035/index.html