Now it’s time to take a close look at a small but competitive business making a difference for the Korean economy. This week’s spotlight is on Bit Computer, leader in the ubiquitous healthcare industry.

Bit Computer, having the largest share in the local medical information and ubiquitous or U-healthcare market, has shown the future of healthcare service in Korea at the recent Korea International Medical and Hospital Equipment Show. Let’s find out more about the company and its signature products from its CEO Jeon Jin-ok.

Until now medical service has been largely provided in hospitals, a setting confined by time and space. But the environment is changing to provide medical service anywhere, anytime. At present our clients are hospitals, but from now on we will provide healthcare solutions to anyone who needs medical services in daily settings. For instance, a hypertension patient automatically stores his daily blood pressure data in a computer, and then the primary diagnostic data is transmitted to a doctor to make a more accurate and personalized diagnosis.

Bit Computer has made scenes out of sci-fi movies a reality for us. Its remote diagnostic equipment, which allows a doctor to treat patients remotely through a computer, monitor, and camera, and its medical IT solutions will vastly improve the quality of medical care provided in the military. Bit Computer is able to make such a big difference in this field, because it has been leading Korea’s medical information industry as the nation’s first software company.

Bit Computer was founded in 1983. Back then people were unfamiliar with computers, much less the concept of combining medicine and computer technology. So Bit Computer became the nation’s first software and medical information company. The word “bit” in our company name was derived from a computer term, implying that computer technology would be applied to the field of medicine. Recently, the word “bit” came to represent the integration of bio and IT technology.

It was back in 1988 when a business classification code for software companies was first established in Korea. But Bit Computer was founded five years earlier than that, in 1983, becoming Korea’s first software specialist, first venture firm, and first medical information specialist. Opening a new chapter in Korean corporate history, it’s not too preposterous to say that Bit Computer pioneered the field of medical information in Korea. As a result, Bit Computer grew from a two-man operation equipped with only one 48-kilobyte PC into a small giant posting an annual revenue of over 26.6 million U.S. dollars and venturing out to the global market.

We are working together with Samsung C&T Corporation to export to hospitals in Mongolia. Samsung is in charge of construction and we provide medical IT solutions. In Kazakhstan we partnered up with Hyundai Corporation to export IT solutions to a Kazakhstani national hospital. We are also doing very well in Thailand, and looking forward to expand strategically in the Middle East, especially in Iraq. We once tried to enter the American market to compete with global industry leaders, using our experience and know-how gained in developing countries, but it didn’t turn out as we hoped. We realized that we had a lot to work on and we’re now focused on sharpening our competitiveness. We are preparing ourselves now so that we can be successful in the American market in the future.

Having pioneered markets in Thailand, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia, Bit Computer is now concentrating its competence on one new field. It’s U-healthcare, which could completely transform the paradigm of medical environments and services. As a matter of fact, Bit Computer has been working toward this goal for quite some time.



At the beginning of the 21st century, futurists predicted that IT technology would bring the greatest change in the field of medicine. Back then we were a leader in the Korean medical information market, but thought of providing our medical IT solutions only to hospitals. We realized that if medical service was combined with IT technology, it could escape the temporal and spatial confines of hospitals and enter people’s daily lives. Computer technology was growing at a faster pace and its size was getting smaller. So we thought of incorporating computer technology into our daily lives and also bringing hospital care into our everyday lives. That’s how we came to be interested in ubiquitous healthcare.


Having predicted the coming of the era of U-healthcare, Bit Computer acquired a patent on remote diagnostic technology and prepared for an environment in which a person can check and manage his or her health conditions by connecting to medical service anywhere, anytime. Bit Computer has been growing for over three decades by endlessly adapting to the rapidly changing environment and now vows to continue with a farsighted vision into the future.

Bit Computer's mission is to provide better solutions and better contents for your health. We have been providing software solutions to hospitals to improve people’s health. These data are our contents, which can be analyzed in many different ways. I believe it’s very important to analyze these contents to prevent disease. So we’re thinking of providing a variety of day-to-day medical services based on these contents. For instance, a mirror can check the condition of your iris or facial color to diagnose the degree of fatigue, or your pulse can be monitored when you grab a doorknob. When an abnormal sign is detected, the information is instantly transmitted to your doctor. I think there are infinite possibilities here and it is our job to get ready for this future.