A medical data space was launched on Friday to share essential information across the boundary — in a bid to save patients from repetitive examinations and further advance medical research.  

The cross-border medical data space — the first in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area – was jointly set up by Guangzhou First People’s Hospital (Nansha Branch) and Faculty of Medicine of Chinese University of Hong Kong, as well as other organizations.

The two institutions on Friday also announced to their intention to enhance cooperation on data concerning the circulation of liver disease.

Justin Wu Che-yuen, associate dean (Health Systems) of Faculty of Medicine of Chinese University of Hong Kong, said that the faculty has established a liver cancer prediction computational model based on 46 items in over 60,000 patients in Hong Kong. Under the pilot study on liver disease cross boundary medical data analytics, this model can be further completed with the data of liver disease patients from Guangzhou First People’s Hospital (Nansha branch).

Wu revealed that the cooperation could be expanded to areas such as rehabilitation, chronic diseases, cancers, primary care and clinical trial.

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Aldous Ng Kwok-sing, chief executive officer of CU Datahub Ltd, noted that data sharing could lead to significant cost savings, and save patients from undergoing needless examinations. Residents of the Greater Bay Area are already active in traveling in the region, Ng noted.

Ng said he hoped that this pilot program can serve as a good example, and the cooperation can be expanded to more hospitals in the Greater Bay Area in the future. He said he believed that the facilitation of data can enhance health services for residents.

The data space launch came a day after a memorandum of understanding was signed to make Hong Kong a station for global cross-boundary trusted data space on Thursday. The deal was struck by The International Data Spaces Association and the Next Generation Internet International Research Institute of Macau University of Science and Technology.

The International Data Industry Alliance, forged by the Greater Bay Area International Information Technology Industry Association (GBAITA), Institute of Big Data Governance (iBDG) and other mainland and overseas industry organizations, was also launched on Thursday.

Liu Dong, dean of Next Generation Internet International Research Institute of Macau University of Science and Technology, agreed the importance of establishing the data space. Liu reminded that more cross-border, universally applicable mechanisms are needed to be refined in future.

The Greater Bay Area medical space can be an innovation endeavor worldwide, based on the abundance of top-tier clinical medical data in Hong Kong, and the SAR should seize the opportunity to discover new models and potentially give rise to more “unicorns”, Liu added.

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Kevin Au Yuk-fai, director of CUHK Centre for Entrepreneurship, said he believed that through cooperation, members can make data integration more likely, and facilitate the collaboration of Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area’s  data industry to work closely with international counterparts.

Contact the writer at atlasshao@chinadailyhk.com