[The Future of Healthcare AX] ④ "AI Never Tires—It's the Ultimate Navigation System for Doctors"

Gu Jihoon, Deputy Director of Central Hospital

A Partner That Makes Up for Doctors' Limits in Focus

A Breakthrough Amid Declining Resident Numbers

The Future of AI Healthcare: From "Treatment" to "Prevention"

Editor's NoteKorean healthcare stands at a major turning point. The entry into a super-aged society, rising chronic diseases, a shortage of essential medical personnel, and deepening regional healthcare gaps are challenges that the existing system alone can no longer solve. Both the government and the medical community are now focusing on medical AX (AI Transformation), which goes beyond simply introducing artificial intelligence (AI) and aims to redesign the entire healthcare system. The goal is not just for AI to assist or replace doctors, but to create a healthcare environment where everyone, regardless of region or income, can access high-quality medical care. The Asia Business Daily examines how rapidly advancing AI is changing the medical field and how it could transform Korea’s healthcare system as a whole.

Jihoon Koo, Deputy Director of Central Hospital, is being interviewed by The Asia Business Daily in the examination room. Photo by Jinhyung Kang

"I don't believe artificial intelligence (AI) will replace doctors. However, the quality gap between doctors who use AI and those who do not will only widen over time."

Jihoon Koo, Deputy Director of Central Hospital, described medical AI not as a "competitor" to doctors, but as a "partner in care." He said, "Medicine has always developed based on science, and AI is simply a new medical tool. Doctors who are not interested in AI will find it difficult to keep up with the pace of change going forward."

The AI technology that Deputy Director Koo personally uses in patient care, and whose effectiveness he has experienced firsthand, is an endoscopic image analysis system. He said, "At first, as an experienced endoscopist, I wondered if AI was even necessary. But after actually using it and seeing AI detect lesions that I might have missed, my perspective changed."

Medical AI not only improves diagnostic accuracy, but also helps reduce physician fatigue. Deputy Director Koo explained, "Just as even experienced drivers use navigation systems on long journeys, experienced doctors also need AI. A human doctor's concentration can differ between seeing the first patient and the fifteenth, but AI never gets tired, so its accuracy does not decline."

He expects that these advantages of AI will help alleviate, at least to some extent, the staffing shortages in the medical field. Deputy Director Koo noted, "Since the conflict between doctors and the government, the aversion to essential medical fields has become more severe, and the rate at which residents apply for internal medicine is now less than 50%. AI will help reduce the time that medical staff spend on repetitive work, enabling them to provide quality care to more patients."

He identified preventive medicine as the field where AI will bring about the greatest change in the future. Citing a domestic university hospital that is developing AI technology to predict future heart failure risk using only electrocardiogram data, Deputy Director Koo said, "The paradigm of healthcare will shift from treating disease after it occurs to predicting and preventing disease before it arises."

Gu Jihoon, Vice Director of Central Hospital, is being interviewed by The Asia Business Daily in the consultation room. Photo by Jinhyung Kang

[The Future of Medical AX]

① From diagnosis to prescription in three minutes... AI transforms the 'golden hour'

② "AI is technology that lets medical staff spend more time with patients"

③ Faster than the human eye... AI fills medical gaps at regional hospitals

④ "AI that never gets tired, the best navigation system for doctors"

⑤ "Receiving Seoul-level care even in rural areas"... Why the government is rolling up its sleeves for medical AI

⑥ "Built a supercar but there are no roads"... The reality of public healthcare in rural regions

⑦ Overcoming reimbursement gaps and data fragmentation... Conditions for sustainable AX

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.