2024-07-17 00:01:36
There has been no company that has applied technology to the long-standing field of Oriental medicine to provide precision medical services. This is because Oriental medicine diagnoses and prescribes based on comprehensive observation of each patient’s symptoms, making it difficult to quantify data. Due to the long consultation times at Oriental medicine clinics, patients also experienced inconveniences such as having to wait a long time for the next patient. This is why there have been calls to create tools to quantitatively measure and evaluate patient symptom information to improve treatment efficiency. Technology application was also necessary to share and inherit Oriental medicine knowledge and know-how. Accordingly, Oriental medicine experts have created a specialized Oriental medicine healthcare platform based on clinical data using information and communication technology. We met with CEO Cho Seong-ok of Helicure to learn about the platform development process and what functions it contains.
‘Helicure’, the company that developed ‘Yejin’, the first specialized healthcare platform in Korean medicine
Helicure began building a Korean medicine database in 2016 to create the first specialized healthcare platform in the Korean medicine field. Afterwards, it established a corporation in 2021 to commercialize the service, and in 2022, it was selected for the Hongneung Gangseo Special Zone Specialized Growth Support Project. Then, in 2023, with the support of the Hongneung Gangseo Special Zone, it successfully developed ‘YE-JIN’, a solution that implements the ‘questionnaire’ process for collecting patients’ symptoms online. After the beta service of YE-JIN last year, the service was officially launched in January of this year.
“Oriental medicine doctors go through a process called ‘Byeonjeung’ (辨證) to differentiate symptoms when diagnosing and treating patients. Oriental medicine has the characteristic of diagnosing diseases through comprehensive observation of individual patient symptoms. Therefore, objectification of diagnosis was essential for consistent and systematic diagnosis,” said Cho Seong-ok, CEO of Helicure. “I started building an oriental medicine database in 2016 with Professor Yang Woong-mo of Kyunghee University’s College of Oriental Medicine, founder of Helicure. I also utilized my nearly 20 years of experience as an oriental medicine doctor. As a result, I was able to officially launch ‘Yejin’, the first specialized healthcare platform in the field of oriental medicine, this year.”
The main services of ‘Yejin’, a specialized Korean medicine healthcare platform developed by Helicure, are largely divided into four categories: ▲Survey for symptom collection ▲Digital diagnosis function that Korean medicine doctors can use for diagnosis analysis ▲Customized prescription recommendation function based on Korean medicine big data ▲Feedback management that is automatically sent after prescription, etc.
Jo Seong-ok, CEO of Helicure, said, “Since Oriental medicine diagnoses patients through comprehensive observation based on their individual symptoms, the consultation time is bound to be long. This is why patients experience inconvenience due to long waiting times at Oriental medicine clinics.” She added, “Yejin, a healthcare platform for Oriental medicine doctors, helps Oriental medicine doctors make quick and accurate diagnoses. When an Oriental medicine doctor using Yejin sends an online questionnaire to a patient via KakaoTalk, the patient fills out their physical characteristics, symptoms, and medications online. The patient fills out the questionnaire at a desired time and place before visiting the hospital, and the doctor checks it. Afterwards, the patient’s symptom information data is collected and analyzed and used for treatment. This is the background for making quick and accurate diagnoses possible.”
He continued, “Based on the oriental medicine data systematically collected by Helicure since 2016, the learned system helps oriental medicine doctors determine the patient’s symptoms. It also recommends accurate herbal medicine prescriptions based on symptoms using big data built from clinical data. Even after the treatment, the preliminary diagnosis solution provides continuous feedback to the doctor on the patient’s progress. As the number of patients diagnosed and prescribed through preliminary diagnosis increases, clinical data accumulates, making the service more sophisticated. It is also possible to share systematic knowledge and know-how for future generations.”
Overcoming trial and error, we succeeded in developing the first specialized Korean medicine healthcare platform.
Helicure is a healthcare company that first introduced precision medical services by utilizing technology in the field of Oriental medicine. The company experienced trial and error during the process of developing its first service due to the lack of leading indicators to refer to.
CEO Cho Seong-ok recalled, “During the initial development, there was no standard terminology for Oriental medicine symptoms and no related database. There was a lot of Oriental medicine information, but it could not be used as data. We had to start with coding to build a database of patients’ symptoms.” He continued, “It was a long journey that required compiling everything from the vast literature on Oriental medicine accumulated over thousands of years to numerous recent data. We succeeded in building a basic database after investing a lot of human resources for three years. After that, we were able to present the Yejin platform to the world after countless efforts, including algorithm development, pilot scale production, clinical trials for reliability verification, self-learning technology development, and system UX/UI design implementation.”
He continued, “We went through a lot of trial and error before introducing the Yejin solution, but I feel rewarded when doctors who used the solution give me feedback that they were able to provide more accurate and effective treatment to patients thanks to the Helicure technology, especially when novice doctors say that they have gained confidence in their treatment with Yejin.” He added, “We need to advance the solution so that more doctors can gain confidence in their treatment with Yejin and patients are satisfied with the results. To this end, Yejin’s solution’s approval as a diagnostic medical device for Korean medicine is essential. Currently, there are no Korean medicine-related items in the market for software diagnostic medical devices utilizing AI and big data. In the absence of any standards for review of Korean medicine software, it is a huge effort to explain the characteristics of the technology and how the software operates. Recently, organizations and groups such as the Korean Digital Convergence Center, the Korean Medicine Industry Promotion Association, the Korean Society of Oriental Medicine, and the Korean Association of Oriental Medicine are working together to establish new Korean medicine-related items in the field of software diagnostic medical devices.”
Second Half Advancement of Pre-Jin Solution Spurred… “We Will Spread the Benefits of Oriental Medicine Worldwide”
In the second half of this year, Helicure plans to advance its solutions by going beyond basic ‘pre-diagnosis’ to include specialized services for specific diseases such as rhinitis, skin diseases, and obesity, as well as services for treatment clinics.
CEO Jo Seong-ok said, “In the process of adding various services to Yejin, we expect to accumulate patient data from various cases,” and “Helicure will develop Yejin into a personal self-management app that will help not only the development of Oriental medicine but also national health and preventive medicine. The home healthcare solution sector is growing worldwide. Helicure has already begun developing a personal healthcare app. As the first company to introduce precision medical services in the field of Oriental medicine, we will do our best to open the era of data Oriental medicine, strengthen the advantages of Oriental medicine, and make Oriental medicine known to the world. We ask for your continued interest in Helicure’s progress.”
IT Donga Reporter Kim Dong-jin ([email protected])
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2024-07-17 00:01:36