Development of service concepts that utilize health-related data: A case study with the National Health Insurance Service of South Korea

Abstract

The South Korean government retains valuable health-related data for nearly all citizens. This data set includes insurance data, diagnosis history data, treatment history data, and medical examination data. This article presents a case study with the National Health Insurance Service of South Korea to develop service concepts that utilize such health-related data. A service concept indicates what to offer to customers and how to offer it. In the case study, 138 service ideas that utilize health-related data were generated based on literature and focus group interviews with 14 experts. The ideas were evaluated by 20 experts via focus group interviews. Eight new service concepts were designed based on the ideas, and then evaluated by 19 experts and 612 citizens. The service concepts are expected to improve the national healthcare system of South Korea. This article also presents key dimensions of health-related data utilization services and issues in developing such services, which were identified based on the case study. The original contribution of this study is the development of health-related data utilization service concepts at a national scale. This work will serve as a foundational reference for future research aimed at developing such services.