TeamNET (Tokyo Enterprise of Advanced Medical Network)
June 06 (Tuesday) 2006
In this post I would like to introduce TeamNET: the Tokyo Enterprise of Advanced Medical Network.
TeamNET is a community-style consortium designed to enhance insurance, healthcare, and welfare for average citizens, to advance informatization and promote scientific technology in the field of healthcare, and to contribute to improving the common good. TeamNET has its origins in the research of a scheme for the sharing of electronic medical chart information led by the Tokyo-Bay Medical Frontier Center in June 2002. In 2004, TeamNET overcame differences with its management style and continued its activities as an NPO with a focus on promoting regional team healthcare conducted from the perspective of patients and citizens.
The Chairman of TeamNET is Tetsuichiro Muto, Director of the Japanese Foundation for Cancer Research, and its administrative board is made up of Shigekoto Kaihara (Dean and Vice President of the International University of Health and Welfare Graduate School and Professor Emeritus at Tokyo University), Akira Takashima (Vice Chairman of the Board at Fujitsu Limited), Motohiro Asonuma (Professor at the International Research Institute of Health and Welfare, International University of Health and Welfare), and Yukihiro Matsuyama (Executive Director of the healthcare corporation Seijinkai). The network itself consists of independent administrative institutions, university hospitals, healthcare corporations, private companies and others, as well as major universities throughout the entire Kanto region.
The concept behind TeamNET consists of two essential points. The first is “regional-level team healthcare”. In Japan, there are already many national and private hospitals, clinics, health spas, healthcare centers and other facilities used by many people for medical and healthcare needs located throughout various regions. TeamNET proposes that these various facilities be integrated into an easy-to-use network that will provide people with one-stop service.
Sharing chart information refers to the management and storage of information attained at medical agencies in an external databank. This would enable the information to be used at any facility, so that in times of emergency the necessary information could be accessed anywhere. Additionally, cooperation between various regional medical institutions and facilities would allow citizens to receive progressive, comprehensive healthcare services. The creation of a seamless information network would make these services possible. To this end, it is important to have support for these ideas and systems from many hospitals, as well as to earn the understanding and participation of businesses and other organizations.
The second essential point behind TeamNET is the concept of shared use of advanced medical facilities. The central pillar of this idea is cancer treatment. Primarily, cancer treatment facilities focus on either heavy-particle therapy or immunotherapy (therapy that uses the body's immune system cells). TeamNET's concept is to combine both of these therapies and provide them cooperatively and efficiently.
Currently, there are three possible methods for treating cancer: taking preventative medicines as part of drug treatment, performing an operation to surgically remove cancer cells, and using radiation to treat cells without surgical removal. Heavy-particle therapy is one form of radiation therapy. In contrast to conventional radiotherapy where epidermal and hypodermal tissues are affected, heavy-particle therapy does not disrupt healthy cells. This is because, up to a certain depth, the heavy-particle beam travels at a fast-enough rate that it transmits little peripheral energy, but rather pinpoints the target only with explosive effect. It is analogous to an invisible knife that cuts away only the infected cells. As a cancer treatment, heavy-particle therapy is comparable to surgical operations, and thus those with authority in the field of surgery have come to support it. This is a truly revolutionary treatment, and thus it is vital to promote the cooperative use of these facilities.
Heavy-particle therapy is not cheap. One treatment for one patient costs approximately 3 million yen (about US$26,500 at an exchange rate of 113 yen to the dollar). However, in surgical cancer treatments, as long as six months to a year of therapy is necessary following an operation. With this in mind, though one treatment of heavy-particle therapy is rather expensive, the outcome of the “surgery” is much easier. Currently, there are quite a few facilities equipped for heavy-particle therapy in Japan, including the National Institute of Radiological Sciences (NIRS), Gunma University, the National Cancer Center and others. TeamNET's plan is to pursue this therapy with the power of the private sector.
TeamNET has begun laying down concrete plans for its operations, and is now in the midst of investigating funding and other tasks. Costs for constructing a heavy-particle therapy-related facility are approximately 15 billion yen (about US$134 million), whereas immunotherapy-related facilities cost approximately 5 or 6 billion yen (about US$44.2 billion or US$53 billion). If the heavy-particle therapy facility has 1000 patients a year, however, the high price tag can be paid off in 10 years. Originally, TeamNET had pushed for building a facility on the artificial island of Odaiba, in Tokyo Bay, but it ran counter to certain land-use conditions. As a result, TeamNET searched for other regions and recently came up with the possibility of Kawasaki City's Tonomachi, located in Kanagawa Prefecture. A movement has since emerged that is lobbying for establishing a facility in this town, which is located along a river near Haneda Airport on the site of an old Isuzu automobile factory. This is tied to the formation of the Kawasaki-Tamagawa Innovation Valley (KTIV).
The formation of KTIV is meant to curb several current issues in healthcare services. For instance, though NIRS is an extremely high-caliber institution, it is a research facility, and thus it does not provide medical care on Saturdays and Sundays and it is also enormously expensive to run. Such an operation would be impossible for the private sector. Facilities in the private sector must focus firstly on a customer-oriented business model that strives to increase the facility's availability factor, for example by operating from 9 a.m. until late at night.
The technology for heavy-particle therapy originated in Japan, but the U.S. and China have also expressed interest and are pursuing its development. It is possible that such facilities will spring up in various other countries within a few years, and thus it is important for Japan to work quickly to develop leading technologies before this occurs.
In my next post I will discuss what could happen if a heavy-particle therapy facility were to be established in KTIV.