Since taking up my post in Korea in 2021, I have witnessed the focus of Korean healthcare policy shifting faster than ever before. Looking at major healthcare policies announced by the government over the past five years, while they may appear to address different domains, they all share a common direction.
The 2023 Basic Plan for Health and Medical Technology Development, the 5th Comprehensive Dementia Management Plan, the 2026 Rare Disease Diagnosis Support Project, and the introduction of AI-based platforms in hospitals may seem like distinct policies on the surface. Yet at their foundation, they all rest on the core value of "early diagnosis."
How early and accurately a diagnosis is made determines the direction of subsequent treatment and management, making this the critical first stage in the direction of healthcare innovation. The countless keywords that describe today's healthcare innovation — personalized medicine, data-driven medicine, collaborative ecosystems — all ultimately begin with this same question.
Diagnostic Testing: The Starting Point of Medical Decisions
Between 60% and 70% of all clinical judgments in medicine begin with diagnostic testing. Which treatment to choose, which therapeutic agent to use — every decision is grounded in diagnostic results. As diagnosis is the first step of every medical judgment, even the most innovative treatment technologies cannot reach patients if diagnosis is not made in time.
As medical reform charts its course toward strengthening primary care centered on clinics and local medical offices, the task of bringing precise diagnostic solutions as close to patients as possible becomes ever clearer. Diagnostic demand itself is structurally increasing. According to the 2023 National Cancer Registry Statistics released by the Ministry of Health and Welfare earlier this year, the number of new cancer patients has increased 2.8-fold compared to 1999, and the prevalence of chronic diseases such as diabetes, obesity, and dementia is rising every year. In Korea, which has entered a super-aged society, these changes are becoming a challenge tied not only to the increasing burden on medical sites but also to the sustainability of the national healthcare system.
Treatment Innovation Begins with Diagnostic Access
The price paid when diagnosis is delayed is significant, both medically and economically. The earlier the diagnosis, the broader the patient's options, the better the prognosis, and the lower the medical costs. Conversely, the later the diagnosis, the more advanced the disease when treatment begins, narrowing treatment options and worsening prognosis.
The numbers support this. In the case of cancer, the cost-effectiveness of early detection is known to be two to four times higher than that of treating advanced cancer. The same applies to Alzheimer's disease, which is rapidly increasing alongside chronic diseases in a super-aged society. If early diagnosis can delay the onset of Alzheimer's by two years, the prevalence rate 20 years later drops to about 80%, and a five-year delay reduces it to 56%. A single diagnostic moment can change the national disease burden decades later. Ultimately, the question of diagnostic access is the question of where one person's treatment journey begins.
Even with the same disease, the number of options a patient has and the weight of treatment vary depending on when they are diagnosed, shaping the rest of their life. An environment in which diagnosis is made in a timely manner is the very first right that should be granted equally to every patient.
Expanding Diagnostic Access and Medical Reform
The direction medical reform pursues is in line with this discussion. The core of the reform lies in further strengthening community-based primary care so that the clinics and local medical offices that patients can easily access nearby can function as the practical first gateway to medical care. In a society where the prevalence of chronic diseases is rising and the elderly population is growing rapidly, there is already a consensus that the clinics and local medical offices that patients first visit must serve as proper gateways.
For primary care to fully play its role, an environment must be in place where each medical institution functions organically and where appropriate diagnosis and treatment can be provided to patients in a timely manner.
Beginning my career in Hong Kong and moving through the United States, Europe, and Taiwan before arriving in Korea, I have observed how the diagnostics industry takes root in different healthcare environments. Before taking up my post in Korea, at Roche Diagnostics Taiwan, I developed a new partnership mechanism with the government amid the unprecedented crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic. I also introduced automation solutions to hospital sites, learning firsthand what it takes for diagnostics to actually function within a system.
Based on that experience, Korea already possesses very special conditions to advance toward such innovation. Outstanding information and communications technology (ICT), standardized medical data accumulated through universal national health insurance, and the momentum for institutional reform — if these conditions are linked with the expansion of diagnostic access, Korea can become a practical model of medical innovation that other countries can reference.
Now is the time for policy, industry, and the medical field to design together a step-by-step approach: which patient groups, which disease areas, and which medical institution units to expand precision diagnostic solutions to first.
The belief that diagnosis is the starting point of medicine, and the value that no patient should be left out of their own treatment journey, can serve as the compass for that design. The first step in healthcare innovation is creating an environment in which the necessary diagnosis reaches the right patient at the right time.
He is...
After earning his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, he joined the Roche Group in 2005 and took up his post in Korea in 2021. Leading laboratory automation and the building of a digital healthcare ecosystem, he is also at the forefront of identifying domestic startups and pursuing global cooperation. He currently serves as Vice Chairman of the Korea Medical Devices Industry Association and as a board member of the Swiss-Korean Business Council. He has previously worked in Hong Kong, Germany, China, the United States, and at the Swiss headquarters.
