Health ministry adds Gangwon, North Chungcheong and Seoul to remote intensive care network

South Korea's health ministry said Thursday it is extending its remote intensive care unit program to the Gangwon, North Chungcheong and Seoul regions, taking a network built to share specialist expertise with smaller hospitals to four regions nationwide.

The new Gangwon and North Chungcheong network began operating on Oct. 1, and the Seoul network is scheduled to start on Nov. 1. The two existing networks in Gyeonggi and Incheon are in operation.

The program connects intensive care units at regional hub hospitals — designated regional medical institutions and tertiary general hospitals — with the critical care wards of smaller partner hospitals using information and communications technology. Specialists at a hub's central monitoring center watch patients' vital signs and warning indicators remotely, offer consultations with local doctors and help decide quickly when a patient needs to be transferred.

Participation is open to general hospitals with at least 15 intensive care beds, and also to public regional hospitals, burn centers, trauma centers and pediatric hospitals that local governments decide need the monitoring service even with fewer beds.

The ministry cited a persistent gap in critical care staffing between hospital tiers. In the fourth adequacy assessment of intensive care units, 100 percent of tertiary general hospitals had a dedicated intensive care specialist on staff, compared with 37.6 percent of general hospitals.

The Gangwon and North Chungcheong network, anchored by Wonju Severance Christian Hospital, with Wonju Medical Center and Chungju Medical Center taking part, is the first built around where patients actually travel for care rather than around administrative boundaries. Among Chungju residents receiving intensive care, 17.64 percent of their hospital days are spent at medical institutions in Wonju.

The Seoul network, led by Samsung Medical Center with Seoul Medical Center, Seonam Hospital and Hyemin Hospital participating, introduces three kinds of artificial intelligence: prediction of a patient's deterioration, image-based analysis of biometric data, and voice-recognition summaries of consultations, all intended to speed clinicians' decisions.

The Gyeonggi and Incheon networks monitored patients' conditions 63,991 times and conducted 240 remote consultations during 2025. They cut the time needed to decide on a transfer from 175 minutes to 90 minutes.

Through September this year, the program had already carried out 259 remote consultations, exceeding the previous year's total, along with 43,389 patient monitoring checks, 51 transfers to hub hospitals and 20 transfers back to local hospitals after patients improved.

The ministry said it will support stable operation of the new regions and keep reviewing the performance of all four.

"The remote intensive care unit is a program that supports local medical institutions in raising their critical care capacity by drawing on the expertise of hub hospitals," said Choi Kyung-il, director of the ministry's advanced medical support bureau. "We will continue working to strengthen cooperation between hospitals so that appropriate critical care can be delivered in the regions in a timely manner."