Seoul “3×3” meeting explores the International Patient Summary as a stepping stone to a Global Health Record

Seoul “3×3” meeting explores the International Patient Summary as a stepping stone to a Global Health Record

Clinicians and standards experts from Korea, Japan and Taiwan gathered at Samsung Medical Center on 9 July 2026 — convened by ISCTE’s BRU_DHI — to test whether the International Patient Summary can become a practical foundation for a future Global Health Record.

Seoul · 9 July 2026

What does it take for a patient’s essential medical information to travel with them across borders? On 9 July 2026, a small group of people who could actually answer that question met in Seoul for the 3×3 Viability and Exploratory Meeting, hosted by Samsung Medical Center (SMC) and convened by Prof. Henrique Martins through BRU_DHI, the digital health innovation hub at ISCTE. For the first time, the clinicians who care for travelling patients sat alongside the standards experts who define how health data moves — and committed, personally, to a set of next steps.

Around the table

The meeting was hosted by Prof. Wonchul Cha of Samsung Medical Center, with SMC colleagues Jong-Soo Choi, Jinhyeong Lee and Yeyoung Kim. Representing Korea’s standards community was Joon Hyun Song (HL7/IHE Korea). From Taiwan came Lu-Cheng Kuo of National Taiwan University Hospital and Li-Hui Lee of HL7 Taiwan. Japan was represented by Masayoshi Seki and Yasunari Shiokawa (IHE/HL7 Japan), with Toshio Naito joining online from Juntendo University Hospital in Tokyo. Prof. Henrique Martins convened the session for ISCTE, supported online by Simon Lewerenz.

The organising idea is a “3×3”: three hospitals — Samsung Medical Center, National Taiwan University Hospital and Juntendo University Hospital — together with the IHE and HL7 chapters of Korea, Japan and Taiwan. Already linked through networks such as the iH10 group of innovative hospitals, these individuals and their organisations form a natural “tripod” on which a shared approach to health records could be built.

From patient summary to global record

At the centre of the discussion sits the International Patient Summary (IPS) — an internationally agreed, condensed record of the essential information needed to care for someone — and the idea of the patient as a “transporter” of their own health data across borders and legal jurisdictions. The longer-term horizon is a Global Health Record (GHR): a way for a traveller who falls ill far from home, or who is referred abroad for specialist care, to arrive with their key clinical information already available and understandable.

The meeting was framed, by design, as a viability and exploratory exercise. Nobody expected near-term cross-border data sharing; the legal, technical and administrative frameworks differ substantially across the three jurisdictions. The aim was mutual understanding, awareness of who does what, and a shared sense of whether — and how — an incremental, trust-based collaboration could begin.

What the group discussed

Each delegation set out where its region stands. Joon Hyun Song described Korea’s work on national FHIR standards (KR Core) and its exploration of a Korean Patient Summary. Masayoshi Seki and Yasunari Shiokawa drew on Japan’s experience from successive IHE Connectathons, while Li-Hui Lee brought Taiwan’s standards perspective and Lu-Cheng Kuo and Toshio Naito spoke from the clinical front line of their hospitals.

The conversation was candid about the obstacles clinicians face today. International records often arrive as unwieldy PDFs of 50 to 100+ pages, in several languages, placing a heavy manual burden on the coordinators who must translate and summarise them. Terminology gaps compound the problem — for example, reconciling national coding systems such as Japan’s JAK10 with international standards like LOINC. And reliably identifying the same patient across different national infrastructures remains an open challenge.

Two forward-looking proposals drew particular interest: an “iH10 Transfer Pack” — a standardised package for patients moving between international hospitals, drawing on streamlined elements of the IPS — and the use of AI to automate record summarisation, easing the administrative load on clinical teams.

What was agreed

The meeting closed with concrete, achievable actions, each carried by the people in the room rather than by institutions in the abstract:

  • A three-document comparison. The participating hospitals — represented by Prof. Wonchul Cha and Jong-Soo Choi (SMC), Lu-Cheng Kuo (National Taiwan University Hospital) and Toshio Naito (Juntendo) — will compare their templates for inbound referral letters, outbound referral letters and discharge summaries, to find a common data structure.
  • Standards mapping. The HL7 and IHE representatives — Joon Hyun Song, Masayoshi Seki, Yasunari Shiokawa and Li-Hui Lee — will compare their respective Implementation Guides, focusing on discharge reports.
  • Technical testing. The group will explore a joint “Plugathon” or “Projectathon” to trial cross-border transactions in a controlled setting.

What comes next

The collaboration will continue online at the end of July 2026 to advance this work, with an in-person opportunity to build on the momentum expected around the IHE Japan Connectathon in the week of 19 October 2026.

The Seoul meeting will be remembered less for any single decision than for who chose to be in the room — named clinicians and standards experts from three countries, taking personal ownership of a shared question. It is exactly the kind of patient-centred, standards-based, cross-border collaboration that BRU_DHI exists to support.

BRU_DHI is a digital health innovation hub based at ISCTE, bringing together researchers, innovators and institutions to advance digital health intelligence. Through collaboration and data-driven innovation, we support projects that build healthier, more connected communities across Europe and beyond.

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