# Section 5 Promoting ICT Use and Application

### 1. Promoting ICT Application in the Education, Medicine and Other Fields

## (1) Promoting ICT Use and Application in the Education Field

MIC carried out the “Leading Education System Demonstration Project,” together with the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, (MEXT) from FY2014 to FY2016 in order to promote ICT use and application in the education field. In the project, MIC and MEXT demonstrated the Education Cloud Platform, which will enable students and teachers to use various kinds of digital materials and tools anywhere and at any time and can be introduced and operated at low cost.

## (2) Promoting ICT Use and Application in the Medical, Nursing, and Health Fields

### A. Promoting Use of Personal Health Records (PHRs)

MIC has been carrying out the “Study Project for Promoting Use of Personal Health Records (PHRs)” as a research project led by the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) for three years starting from FY2016. The studies aim to develop PHR service models in accordance with four life stages: (i) support for pregnancy, delivery and child-rearing, (ii) prevention of illness and nursing care, (iii) prevention of serious lifestyle-related diseases, and (iv) collaboration in the medical and nursing care services, and to establish fundamental technologies to enable comprehensive use of various PHRs.

### B. Promoting Nationwide Dissemination of Electronic Health Record (EHR) Infrastructure

MIC is carrying out the “Cloud-based EHR Sophistication Project” to achieve effective community-based integrated care and facilitate wide-area data cooperation across communities. Specifically, the project assists sophistication of EHRs, such as enabling interactive information exchange by linking diverse facilities in respective communities, including hospitals, clinics, dentists, pharmacies, and nursing care facilities, via a network by the use of cloud-based technologies.

### C. Promoting Application of 8K Technology to the Medical Field

At present, MIC is promoting 4K/8K broadcast services as part of its initiatives for sophisticated broadcast services. 4K is four times and 8K is 16 times the current high definition in terms of pixels and 4K/8K broadcasting provides viewers with vivid and alive ultra-high-definition images. As the application of 8K technology is expected to bring about innovation in medical services in diverse fields, MIC launched the Study Group on Applying 8K Technology for Intelligent Medicine, which concretely discussed the potential of and problems in promoting medical applications of 8K technology and compiled a report in July 2016. Based on this report, demonstration tests are being carried out for the implementation of a data sharing base necessary for collecting, transmitting and storing large amounts of ultrahigh-definition image data, the development of an AI-aided diagnosis system, the development of an 8K endoscope (hard mirror), and telemedicine and telepathology, etc.

## (3) Promoting Teleworking

Teleworking enables, through the use of ICT, flexible working arrangements that make better use of time and location. Teleworking is expected to improve the work-life balance of workers and also raise the productivity of enterprises. MIC is promoting “Furusato (Hometown) Teleworking,” which will enable people in local areas to work under the same working environment as that in urban areas, with the hope of facilitating moves of people and work to local areas. In FY2016, as the Furusato Teleworking Project, MIC subsidized programs at 22 locations nationwide to help achieve flexible working styles, improve the work-life balance, and revitalize local economies. In March 2017, MIC held a Furusato Teleworking Seminar to raise awareness of this project.

### 2. Regional Development Using Information and Communications Infrastructure

## (1) Promoting the Development of Free Wi-Fi Environment

In December 2016, MIC formulated the “Wi-Fi Environment Development Plan Contributing to Disaster Prevention,” which compiles the required number of locations and time for developing the Wi-Fi environment, with the aim of promoting the development based on this Plan and securing required information transmission means in the event of a disaster. In order to support the efforts by local governments and other third-sector entities for achieving goals specified in this Plan, MIC launched the “Free Wi-Fi Environment Development Support Project” in FY2017 and has promoted the development of a free Wi-Fi environment that will contribute to collecting and transmitting disaster information to local residents and people visiting the relevant areas upon a disaster.

For developing an environment to allow tourists to more smoothly use Wi-Fi services, MIC conducted a demonstration test for realizing authentication cooperation in line with the policies for the promotion of simplification and unification of procedures for starting the use of services, which MIC formulated in February 2016. Based on the results of the demonstration test, the Wireless LAN Certification Organization was estab-