South Korea has granted a regulatory exemption allowing severe trauma centers to install closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras to collect emergency treatment footage and use it to advance medical artificial intelligence (AI). The move is expected to improve survival rates for severe trauma patients.
The Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) said Thursday it designated a total of four regulatory exemptions, including an "AI-based severe trauma patient care system," at the 44th ICT Regulatory Sandbox New Technology and Service Review Committee meeting.
The core of the "AI-based severe trauma patient care system" demonstration exemption, granted to the Ajou University Industry-Academic Cooperation Foundation, involves installing CCTV cameras in trauma resuscitation rooms at severe trauma centers to collect actual emergency treatment footage. After de-identification, the footage will be used to advance medical AI applications such as automated medical record drafting assistance and prevention of omissions in emergency treatment records.
Under the current Personal Information Protection Act, collecting and using footage that may contain personal and sensitive information in closed spaces requires prior consent from data subjects. However, obtaining prior consent at severe trauma centers has been extremely difficult because many emergency patients are unconscious. The exemption now allows immediate collection of footage on the premise of "post-consent."
The enabling of medical AI work assistance is expected to shorten the time from hospital arrival to surgery, helping to improve survival rates for severe trauma patients.
A demonstration exemption was also granted to allow AI to analyze fault types through remote power management systems installed at electric vehicle charging stations and to remotely resolve charger software errors or temporary power issues. A "landline telephone service using wireless networks (LTE)" was also designated as a demonstration exemption, enabling portions of landline telephone services to be provided wirelessly.
A demonstration exemption for "autonomous delivery robot system enhancement using original video information," granted to Neubility, was also designated. This allows autonomous delivery robots to use original video information acquired during operation to advance AI performance. It is expected to help improve the stability and precision of delivery services.
Separately, the review committee deliberated and resolved a total of 10 agenda items that day, including demonstration exemption designations as well as conversions to temporary approval for "shared accommodations for domestic and foreign nationals" and "regional channel commerce broadcasting services by comprehensive cable broadcasters."
