Seoul, March 30 (IANS). South Korea is planning to provide a distance medical service (telemedicine) to 4,500 employees working on sea ships through satellite tele-commerce. The Ministry of Marine Affairs gave this information on Sunday.
According to the Xinhua News Agency report, the Ocean and the Ministry of Fisheries said that employees working on sea ships many times do not get timely treatment in emergency conditions or diseases.
To solve this problem, the government partnered in 2015 with the Maritime Medical Research Center of Pusan National University Hospital. The ministry said that in the last 10 years, 109,312 telemedicine services have been provided for the crew of deep sea ships.
In the year 2023 itself, the government provided telemedicine services 24,026 times on 180 seaples. Under this scheme, employees will be trained to deal with emergency conditions and will also get counseling for diseases like diabetes and high blood pressure.
Last year, South Korea held an online meeting with the US, which discussed new opportunities to improve telemedicine services of the two countries and cooperate. According to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, after the South Korea-US supply chain and commercial talks (SCCD) held in March, there was a meeting with about 30 companies from the two countries. SCCD is a regular platform of ministers, which aims to discuss the promotion of strong supply chains for essential products such as objects, batteries and important minerals.
The demand for mobile -based telemedicine services is likely to increase in future due to increasing elderly population. According to a government official, “South Korea has a lot of potential in the field of digital health, as there is a huge amount of clinical data and advanced information technology. The Ministry is trying to support experts to establish an industrial ecosystem for digital health sector as well as to support commercialization of related products and services along with promoting experts.”
-IANS
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