A global coalition of healthcare experts has gathered in Wonju City, Gangwon-do Province, to accelerate the world's access to universal health coverage, one of the U.N.'s sustainable development goals for healthcare.

On March 29, the Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service (HIRA) held its opening ceremony and announced the establishment of the HIRA Global Universal Healthcare Coverage (UHC) Campus at the organization's Wonju headquarters. The mayor of Wonju and several diplomats from foreign embassies in Seoul were in attendance at the event. Also present were 27 healthcare experts from the Joint Learning Network (JLN), a global network of practitioners and policymakers who co-develop global knowledge products to bring about health reforms that bridge the gap between theory and practice.

After the ceremony, the JLN healthcare experts began a four-day workshop as part of the JLN Medical Audits Collaborative, an initiative jointly run by the JLN and the HIRA. With the aim of developing a toolkit for medical audits, the experts discussed Korea's medical expenses and cost appropriateness, and learned about the local clinical support system for drug prescriptions, presented as case studies. After covering these topics, the panel discussed ways to implement these policies and practices in low and middle-income countries where universal health coverage is not yet in place.

In addition to the JLN Medical Audits Collaborative, the Global UHC Campus will run a variety of programs over the upcoming years. Some of these include global health insurance training sessions, healthcare training for practitioners from Ghana and Ethiopia, an exchange program with Iran's health insurance agency, as well as international symposiums and other workshops.

President Sohn Myongsei of the Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service said that he "hopes to disseminate information about Korea's healthcare and insurance system using the Global UHC Campus as a platform, and in doing so contribute to expanding the world's access to universal health coverage."

Moving forward, the HIRA Global UHC Campus will serve as a forum for the United Nations, the World Health Organization and other international healthcare organizations to share knowledge and to educate others on bettering the world's health systems at large.

By Lee Hana
Korea.net Staff Writer
Photos: Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service
hlee10@korea.kr