Samsung Medical Center announced Thursday it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Heidi Pty Ltd., a global healthcare AI company.
Founded in 2019, Heidi currently supports more than 3 million medical consultations per week across 190 countries in 110 languages. Beyond its core speech-to-text service, the company offers services tailored to clinical contexts — including specialty-specific document generation and real-time AI-assisted decision support.
Under the MOU, Samsung Medical Center and Heidi plan to collaborate primarily on applying Heidi's speech-to-text technology to Darwin. Heidi is also developing a range of AI agents for hospital use, and the two organizations intend to expand their cooperation into areas such as telemedicine and appointment scheduling.
"Samsung Medical Center will be Heidi's first partner in Korea, and we look forward to working with them as a core collaborator," Heidi CEO Thomas Kelly said. "We hope hospitals in Korea can use our technology to strengthen their medical capabilities while preserving the warmth and care they show their patients."
Samsung Medical Center President Park Seung-woo said the partnership would accelerate efforts to build a patient-friendly AI healthcare environment. "This will be another important leap forward for Samsung Medical Center as we work to realize the medicine of the future and shape the smart hospital of tomorrow," Park said.
Meanwhile, Samsung Medical Center ranked fourth in the world and first in South Korea in Newsweek's "2027 World's Best Smart Hospitals" assessment. The hospital also achieved the top rating of Stage 7 in four categories evaluated by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society: IT infrastructure (INFRAM), electronic medical records (EMRAM), digital imaging (DIAM) and healthcare data analytics (AMAM). Samsung Medical Center was the first hospital in the world to reach Stage 7 in INFRAM, in 2022, and in DIAM, in 2023.
kty@heraldcorp.com
