Wang Yonghong from NHFPC: Five Key Challenges Hindering the Advancement of Healthcare Big Data

Wang Yonghong, Director of the Jiangsu Provincial Health and Family Planning Commission, Delivers a Speech at the Forum

Materials, energy, and information are three critical components of big data in healthcare. We are currently living in an era of data explosion, where every individual around the world is continuously generating and utilizing information. In this age, the volume of data produced daily is immense; indeed, the amount of data generated in just the past three years exceeds that accumulated over tens of thousands of years prior.

Currently, China has over 600 million internet users. Consumption upgrading has brought people material satisfaction, yet what they truly pursue is happiness, the primary element of which is health. Big data in healthcare plays a significant role in enhancing human well-being.

Healthcare big data encompasses a wide array of complex information derived from the human body, with sources that are highly diverse. Furthermore, there is a substantial volume of self-quantified data, including metrics such as heart rate, blood pressure, and blood glucose levels.

Big health and medical data are closely linked to life sciences, population sciences, and environmental sciences, while also exhibiting characteristics of polymorphism and continuity.

Modern medicine is undergoing a transition from traditional healthcare models to mobile health models. During this transformation, a pressing practical question arises: how can big data in health and medical care generate value?

Obama invested $30 billion to improve electronic health records. In the United States, the integration of internet technology with healthcare is primarily driven by hospitals, physicians, pharmaceutical companies, and insurance providers. If big data can be effectively leveraged, it is estimated that $190 billion in annual healthcare expenditures could be saved.

In addition to the United States, other countries are also making significant efforts in the development of big data in healthcare. The Canadian government has invested CAD 2.1 billion in developing regional health information systems; the United Kingdom has improved management efficiency by establishing a health and care information system; Australia has launched an electronic health record system; and the European Union is continuously liberalizing its policies to promote the use of big data.

Big data in healthcare offers multifaceted benefits. Primarily, it serves the public by providing more convenient, efficient, and high-quality services, thereby streamlining access to medical care. Additionally, it supports physicians by enabling greater precision and refinement in clinical practice. Even Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) can leverage big data to enhance its diagnostic methods of inspection, auscultation and olfaction, inquiry, and pulse-taking; indeed, TCM robots have already emerged. Therefore, big data forms the core of precision medicine.

In addition to the aforementioned aspects, big data in health and medicine can also inject powerful momentum into the deepening of healthcare reform. We are at a turning point in medical reform; it was once predicted that by 2020, medical data would grow to 42 times its 2010 volume. China is still in the primary stage, as the application of medical big data is an interdisciplinary issue, and the sector remains largely unregulated.

Bottlenecks in Development and the Five Major Challenges:

1. Insufficient Depth of Analysis

2. Insufficient Contribution

3. Lack of Safety

4. Talent Shortage

5. Lack of Awareness Among Healthcare Professionals

In June this year, the State Council issued the "Guiding Opinions of the General Office of the State Council on Promoting and Standardizing the Application and Development of Health and Medical Big Data." In accordance with the State Council's guiding opinions, by the end of 2017, interconnectivity will be achieved between national and provincial population health information platforms as well as the national drug bidding and procurement business application platform, basically forming a pattern of cross-departmental sharing and common use of health and medical data resources.

As I understand it, there are four major elements:

1. Differentiate the applications of big data;

Second, big data services should be standardized;

Third, strengthen the foundation for big data applications;

Fourth, strengthen the construction of the big data support system.

Five key points must be grasped:

First, interoperability is the foundation; big data collection must be strengthened.

Second, innovate standards and norms to strengthen the sharing of medical big data;

Third, enhancing safety services currently faces challenges in both legal and technical aspects;

Fourth, policy support serves as the guarantee;

5. Cultivation of Relevant Technical Talent