Social issues and vision
As Japan faces a super-aging society, the growing gap between life expectancy and healthy life expectancy and the financial strain on health insurance associations and other insurers due to the high level of national healthcare costs are becoming social issues.
While everyone can access medical care with peace of mind thanks to a well-developed medical system that includes universal health insurance, people tend to visit medical institutions after an illness shows symptoms or when the risk of serious illness has increased, driving up the costs of medical care in Japan.
By supporting health from the early stages of illness, the Group is working to optimize medical costs and extend healthy life expectancy, thereby improving the well-being of all of our customers for years to come.
Initiatives and results
Based on an understanding of current social issues, we provide "Healstep®" as a medical cost optimization support service for health insurance associations.
"Healstep®" broadly consists of four services: (1) Visualization of future disease risks and medical costs with a future medical cost prediction model (AI engine), (2) Formulation of a response policy based on visualized data, (3) Assistance with online health guidance and other matters in cooperation with service providers, and (4) "QOLism," a health promotion app for health insurance association members. Through these services, we offer a wide range of content to help individual customers improve their well-being, including through exercise, diet, and mental health.
At the 2021 Data Health and Prevention Service Trade Fair (sponsored by the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare), we won the "Grand Prize" being acknowledged by health insurance associations, local governments, companies, and other organizations. QOLism has also been well-received externally, including by the Good Design Award (sponsored by the Japan Institute of Design Promotion) in 2022. The number of health insurance associations that have adopted Healstep® has been steadily increasing, and we have also begun to provide part of our services to support health management for employers.
In fiscal 2022, we held "Healstep Meetings" for health insurance associations using Healstep® and "Healstep Webinars" for insurers and employers. While the Japanese government plans to launch the third Data Health Plan* in fiscal 2024, we have received positive feedback from our customers about the opportunities for them to interact with other customers and obtain the latest information from industry experts.
We will continue to listen to our customers, further expand our services, and provide support to boost the effectiveness of our initiatives.
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Data Health Plan: A business plan to effectively and efficiently conduct health insurance business based on the analysis of data derived from health examinations and receipt information through the PDCA cycle.
Medium-term initiatives
To solve social issues such as the widening gap between life expectancy and healthy life expectancy and the increasing cost of medical care, we believe it is vital to promote people's health and prevent the onset of severe illness.
In the medium to long term for example, we are considering providing a seamless platform that allows individuals to identify future risks at an early stage and easily access appropriate medical institutions as a preventive measure or engage in preventive medical care by themselves. In addition, we will seek to improve our services by reflecting customer opinions and requests through the provision of services to a wider range of customers, including employers and health insurance associations.
Since the coronavirus pandemic, great strides have been made in the health and medical fields in terms of online access and digitalization. In keeping with these global changes, we will provide one-stop support from health promotion to prevention of disease onset and reduction of disease severity through face-to-face and digital services in collaboration with companies in various healthcare fields. We will continue to strengthen our Group strategy to have a greater social impact in areas such as extension of healthy life expectancy.
