Seoul St. Mary's Hospital consortium expands medical AI cooperation using health data

The Catholic University of Korea Seoul St. Mary's Hospital consortium announced Wednesday that it held an MOU signing ceremony and industry networking event Tuesday as part of the 2026 Medical Data-Centered Hospital Support Project, aimed at advancing AI transformation in healthcare.

The consortium includes Asan Medical Center, the National Cancer Center, Chung-Ang University Hospital and Konkuk University Hospital, with Seoul St. Mary's Hospital serving as the lead institution.

The Medical Data-Centered Hospital Support Project, led by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, is a national initiative designed to build a data-sharing framework among hospitals, industry and research institutions — promoting the use of medical data and accelerating clinical big data research and medical AI development.

The project aims to establish a foundation for the safe use of high-quality medical data held by healthcare institutions and to support the clinical validation and demonstration of AI models and solutions through industry partnerships, fostering a data-driven medical innovation ecosystem.

Seoul St. Mary's Hospital has carried out the Medical Data-Centered Hospital Support Project for six years since its selection in 2020. The hospital was again chosen as the lead institution for the third phase of the project, covering 2026 to 2028.

"We plan to build a collaborative framework connecting research, industry and clinical practice through medical data and AI technology, and to contribute to public health and the growth of the bio-health industry by realizing AI transformation in healthcare," a hospital official said.

At Tuesday's signing ceremony, the five hospitals in the consortium signed an MOU to strengthen medical data utilization and AI cooperation in line with the era of healthcare AI transformation.

The institutions agreed to jointly pursue research on shared medical data use and outreach to external stakeholders, while cooperating on AI model performance validation, clinical application and demonstration of AI solutions, expansion of industry partnerships, and the identification and dissemination of best practices.

The agreement is expected to broaden the use of medical data accumulated at each hospital beyond individual research, aligning it more closely with the needs of clinical settings and industry.

The industry networking event that followed was organized to share the latest medical AI technologies and solutions from industry partners and to expand opportunities for proof-of-concept validation and demonstration projects linking AI models to the consortium's medical data and clinical environments.

Jung Chan-kwon, a pathology professor and director of the smart hospital division at Seoul St. Mary's Hospital, said the consortium is "building a medical AI collaboration environment where industry and healthcare institutions can grow together, drawing on six years of accumulated medical data and research capabilities." He added that the hospital would "actively support AI model validation and demonstration projects based on medical data to generate tangible AI innovation outcomes in clinical settings and contribute to the broader spread of healthcare AI transformation."

The Medical Data-Centered Hospital Support Project currently involves 45 hospitals nationwide organized into seven consortia. The Seoul St. Mary's Hospital consortium plans to lead efforts to build a data-driven medical innovation ecosystem this year, backed by a project budget of approximately 1.9 billion won (about $1.25 million), focusing on promoting medical data research, expanding industry and public-sector partnerships, and supporting medical AI validation and demonstration.