Kagawa prefecture has early established a medical information network in Japan and has started operation. This medical information network has been researching and developing for many years by Kagawa University in collaboration with the prefecture and the medical association.  We call this K-MIX, taking the initials of Kagawa Medical Information eXchange. (see video)

K-MIX shares the medical information of patients with doctors at each hospital and conducts team medical care. The hospitals have clinic, general hospital, special hospital, rehabilitation hospital, etc., each of which specializes in treating a patient. It is hoped that these hospital doctors will collaborate on medical　information of patient and cooperate in order to properly diagnose and treat patients. K-MIX is the system that makes it possible to do this quickly and correctly by using ICT, Information Communication Technology. Professor Hara of Seto Inland Regional Research Center is greatly contributing to this.

The mechanism of K-MIX is to make available the medical information of patients in each hospital through the medical information sharing server installed in the data center for reference by doctors of each hospital using the Internet.

For example,

・Medical doctors specialized in other hospitals interpret medical images of patients taken with CT or MRI.
・Patient information is shared with the doctors at the general hospital who operated the surgery and the doctors at the clinic seeing daily progress.

Previously, perinatal mortality rate in Kagawa prefecture was worst in Japan, but recently it is improved to 2.2 people per 1,000 births. It is the best in Japan. It is also the best in the world. Professor Hara of Seto Inland Sea Regional Research Center greatly contributed to this.

Professor Hara together with Professor Takeuchi of the Seto Inland Sea Regional Research Center greatly improved perinatal mortality by developing a fetal heart rate monitor in the past and finding birth defects and abnormalities at an early stage.

Currently, the Seto Inland Sea Regional Research Center connects its fetal heart rate monitor to the K-MIX via the Internet.

For example,

Specialist doctor consults to the maternity hospital seeing the waveform from the fetal heart rate monitor via the Internet. In case of childbirth where difficulties are expected, pregnant women are transported from the maternity hospital to general hospital in advance.

This system has attracted attention from overseas, and it is expanding overseas.

Melody International Ltd. Which is local venture company is also developing compact and easy-to-use mobile CTG. Cooperating with Seto Inland Sea Regional Research Center. (see video)

In addition, K-MIX is being tested not only for hospitals collaboration but also for collaboration with nursing care facilities and cooperation with pharmacies toward expansion into areas such as team medicine and team nursing care. It has also begun to be used for clinical trials and clinical studies.

There are many islands in the Seto Inland Sea. Many of the islands have few residents, and there are many islands without doctors. Therefore, there are many difficulties such as patient transportation to hospitals on land side in emergency as well as usual health care by doctors.

Seto Inland Sea Regional Research Center is trying to manage the health of the islanders by using a videophone via the Internet and mobile phone line

We developed a system called “Doctor com” which has strict system security and can also refer to patient data on the K-MIX at the same time.

Kagawa prefectural government is trying to dispatch the special nurses to the islands and to patient care under the direction of the doctor on the videophone. With the special permission from the government, the nurses can do some medical practices because the nurses have special qualification by receiving special educations. The nurses are called “olive nurse”.