[Contributions of university hospitals to local health integration networks]

The use of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) has supported the widespread sharing of healthcare data. Collaboration among medical or health facilities in the community using a telemedicine infrastructure has been promoted by the Strategy of IT-related Structural Reform (the Acceleration and Advancement of e-Japan Priority Policy Program) of the Japanese government. Many university hospitals have been playing leading roles of facilitating collaboration with community healthcare. Through advances in broadband networking and security technology, we have made great progress from the trial stage to the practical stage in the electronic sharing of clinical data. Although many efforts are being made spread the cooperation areas or widen the scope of information sharing for utilization in disease prevention or clinical trials of newly developed drugs as well as medical information, university hospitals have to continue working on these areas to support patients and staff as core hospitals in the community.