Korea clears Kakao, Samsung and Catholic Medical Center as 1st gatekeepers for healthcare MyData < Policy < Article

Korea has picked Kangbuk Samsung Hospital, Kakao Healthcare and the Catholic Medical Center (CMC) as the first organizations certified to receive patients’ medical MyData through the government’s “My HealthWay,” a move that effectively opens a regulated lane for hospitals and digital health companies to build consumer services on top of sensitive health records while promising tighter privacy controls.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) said Tuesday the three were designated as “specialized” personal information management institutions in healthcare, a new approval category created to screen entities that want to take in medical MyData and use it for tailored digital health services. The designation is valid for three years.

The decision is the first in healthcare since Korea began rolling out a broader system in March to approve personal information management institutions under the country’s MyData framework, which gives individuals the right to request that their own data be transferred and used for services they choose. 

Because medical information is considered especially sensitive, MOHW is the approving authority for healthcare-specific “specialized” institutions, working alongside the Personal Information Protection Commission and the Korea Health Industry Development Institute.

In practice, the designations bless three distinct service models:

Kangbuk Samsung Hospital was cleared for “Medibox,” a mental-health lifelog and medication service that links MyData with smartphone and wearable signals such as activity and sleep, analyzes those inputs to generate digital markers and risk signals, and connects to a clinical decision support engine designed to analyze medication use and predict adverse effects. The model ends with AI-driven coaching, user check-ins and monitoring.

Kakao Healthcare’s “MyMEDs” is a medication “secretary” built around prescription information and medical visit history, including functions focused on prescription drug information, same-ingredient alternatives and alerts related to side effects and allergies.

CMC’s “MyWell+” is positioned as a personal health and medical data hub that lets users integrate, view and manage MyData, then layers on personalized prevention and management content tied to chronic and serious disease risk.

All three services sit on the same national plumbing. My HealthWay is described as an intermediary that moves MyData after a person consents and submits a transfer request, pulling from 1,269 medical institutions and three public agencies, and it can also link patient-generated health data such as Samsung Health and Apple Health.

Health officials framed the approvals as a trust-building step as demand rises for MyData-enabled digital health and AI-based services. 

To qualify, applicants had to clear requirements around technical capability and expertise, security controls and operational safeguards, and financial capacity, the ministry said. The screening process runs from document submission and review to on-site inspection and a final comprehensive evaluation, with results notified within five months of application receipt.