BioScience Trends. 2019;13(3):276-278. (DOI: 10.5582/bst.2019.01124)

Super-aged society: Constructing an integrated information platform of self-recording lifelogs and medical records to support health care in Japan.

Karako K, Chen Y, Song PP, Tang W

As the super-aged society, Japan is facing challenges in health care system. As one of measures to cope with challenges, the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare started to construct an open medical information platform, named PeOPLe, in 2016 for personalized medical care, improvement of medical services, and the redistribution of medical resources. The Ministry plans to build the platform infrastructure by 2020 and put the platform into full-scale operation by 2025. PeOPLe collects only medical records, but it should collect lifelogs as well in order to better improve the health, especially for elderly. A lifelog is a record of a person's activity and it has potential to predict the probability a person will suffer a lifestyle-related disease as a result of the person's lifestyle. This prediction could help to maintain the health of the elderly. In addition, constructing a self-recording platform integrated with the medical platform is the best way to collect lifelogs since collecting a large amount of lifelogs for a long time from various people at public or medical agencies is difficult. A self-recording platform is a place where people can post and manage their lifelogs. In return for posting lifelogs, people will receive personalized health advice, which will attract more people.

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