Thoughts on the Tokyo Conference of the Pacific Health Summit
April 14 (Friday) 2006
On April 11 and April 12, Tokyo was host to the Tokyo Conference of the Pacific Health Summit, a two-day conference held in the Imperial Hotel. The Pacific Health Summit is an international project funded by the Bill Gates Foundation with a four-year plan to establish new methodologies for the early detection and early treatment of cancer and other serious diseases in the Asia-Pacific region. To achieve these goals, the Summit seeks the assistance and participation of visionary companies, governments, healthcare and healthcare policy-related entities throughout the U.S., Korea, Japan and other countries. The project began in 2005, and it aims to hold international conferences at the Bill Gates Foundation headquarters in Seattle for three years, with the final conference to be held in Beijing in 2008.
Alongside the many main conferences to be held during the project's four years, many working groups are also active. These groups are formed of interested specialists and concerned parties who meet to pursue research on various pragmatic themes, with the goal of presenting results that will guide the main conferences in Seattle. As one of the most vital hubs in Asia, it was our privilege this month to host the Tokyo Working Group Conference.
As co-sponsoring organization of the Pacific Health Summit, Fujitsu organized and played host to the Tokyo Conference under the themes of “Healthcare, Information, and Policy”. The conference opened with a welcome speech by Mr. Akikusa, Director of Fujitsu, followed by a keynote address by myself as Chairman of the Fujitsu Research Institute. The conference spanned two days, with meetings conducted in five sections.
In his welcome speech, Mr. Akikusa mentioned that the development of various advanced medical equipment, such as for DNA mapping and MRIs, has contributed to the establishment of extremely efficient analysis and medical diagnoses in today's medical world. He noted, however, that at the same time there is an undeniable gap between these advanced technologies and benefits for everyday people. Mr. Akikusa closed his apt remarks with a powerful and motivating call for conferences like this one to work towards closing the gap between technology and everyday people.
The common theme running through all five sections of the conference was the extent to which technology can be developed and utilized for healthcare in the information age. Some possible methods that have been raised as a means to efficiently promote the treatment, prevention, and positive health of sick individuals is the development and use of a “Personal Health Record”, which tracks an individual's health information, and an “Electronic Medical Record”, which electronically records an individual's treatment information and other details.
Technological progress has brought many eye-opening revelations, and the accumulation and consolidation of vast troves of information is becoming more efficient everyday. At the same time, however, there remain massive hurdles for the majority of individuals throughout the world to use this information appropriately to promote disease prevention and treatment. It is clear from these issues that advances in technology are not yet as efficient as they could be in promoting individuals' health and reducing the burden of healthcare costs on society.
Empirical studies are currently underway in various countries throughout the world, but major achievements for society as a whole are still a long way off. Discussions at the conference made it clear that a plethora of social, economic, and political obstacles are building up to prevent these achievements.
To solve this problem, the Tokyo Conference laid bare a host of issues that must be addressed. These issues include how to pursue international standardization, how to secure international consensus, how to accommodate the opinions of interested parties from various countries, and others. The conference concluded with a resolve to give feedback on these critical issues at the next main conference in Seattle.
Using technological progress to connect people's happiness with socioeconomic results is an exceedingly important and yet extremely complicated and massive undertaking. The Tokyo Conference made this abundantly clear, and from this point of view it provided us with a valuable common understanding of the challenges that lie ahead.
Several representatives from Fujitsu and FRI will be in attendance at the conference in Seattle scheduled for July of this year. Mr. Miyamoto, Deputy General Manager of Public Policy & Business Development Unit, Fujitsu Ltd., and Mr. Olive, General Manager of Fujitsu Ltd.'s Washington, DC Office will represent Fujitsu, while Director Nezu and myself will represent FRI. It will be interesting to see what level of international understanding regarding these issues we can reach, and how much progress toward meaningful policies we will achieve.