The "Ina City Mobile Clinic Project" was featured in the Nikkei Cross Tech Active magazine. The mobile clinic operated by Ina City is equipped with "Nexstetho Synapse" an in-vehicle online medical remote consultation platform developed jointly with NTT Smart Connect, and has already completed its demonstration test and is now in full operation.
Mr. Teru Yasue, Director of the New Industry and Technology Promotion Section, Planning Policy Division, Planning Department, Ina City, explains why he planned the mobile clinic project. There is only so much that a basic municipality can do to solve medical issues. We planned to build a system to support local medical care by providing infrastructure services specialized in medical care for patients and doctors, so that the community can work together. Specifically, in addition to providing ambulances, patient transport vehicles, and doctor cars, which are the role of the local government, the concept is to provide a medical platform service that can be shared by multiple medical institutions and doctors.
In order to develop a completely new vehicle called health mobility and actually implement remote home medical care as a business, the cooperation of medical institutions was essential. Yasue says that he focused on negotiating and exchanging opinions with the local medical association (Kamiina Medical Association) and doctors at the core hospital, Ina Central Hospital. As a municipality that knows the current situation of the region well, we listened to the opinions of the doctors, built a cooperative relationship with them, and carefully considered how we could support the project," Yasue said.