Seoul St. Mary's Hospital consortium leads data-driven medical AI transformation

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

Member institutions of the consortium include 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 organization.

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

The project aims in particular 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, ultimately fostering a data-driven medical innovation ecosystem.

Seoul St. Mary's Hospital has carried out the Medical Data-Centered Hospital project for six years since its selection in 2020, and has again been designated 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 based on medical data and AI technology, and to contribute to public health and the development of the bio-health industry by realizing medical AI transformation," a hospital official said.

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

The participating 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 with the needs of clinical settings and the industry.

Jung Chan-kwon, a pathology professor and director of smart hospital operations at Seoul St. Mary's Hospital, said the institution 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 wider adoption of medical AI transformation."

Meanwhile, the Medical Data-Centered Hospital Support Project currently involves 45 hospitals nationwide organized into seven consortia.