National Emergency Medical Data System faces multiple technical failures

The National Emergency Medical Data System (NEDIS), which collects real-time patient information from emergency medical institutions across South Korea, has experienced three technical failures this year. Data analyzed by Representative Heo Jong-sik from the National Medical Center reveals a total of four system errors or failures between 2024 and August 2026, with three occurring concentrated in February and March.

One significant outage lasted 32 hours and 40 minutes starting February 1, caused by the system's storage partition reaching its maximum capacity, which prevented hospitals from transmitting patient data to the central system. Additionally, redundant servers experienced repeated errors in March, with one server failing for 1 hour and 47 minutes, followed by a similar error on the second server 10 hours later that lasted 2 hours and 33 minutes.

While the National Medical Center stated that emergency room treatments were not interrupted and that measures like increasing storage capacity and adding automated session removal functions have been implemented, Representative Heo raised concerns regarding data integrity. He argued that prolonged transmission delays could undermine the timeliness and reliability of national emergency medical statistics and policy-making. He called on the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the National Medical Center to conduct emergency stability diagnoses, disaster recovery drills, and establish a standardized reporting system for information retransmission and recovery verification.