Lecture 6
Public–Private Partnerships and Corporate Health Management: Corporate Investment in Health and Responsible Private-Sector Engagement

AHMAD Syahid Mohd Fadzil

Deputy Dean & Lecturer, School of Digital Health (SDH), KPJ Healthcare University 

Principal Lead & Medical AI Strategist, Centre for Digital Health (CDH), Future Health Institute, KPJ Healthcare

AHMAD Syahid Mohd Fadzil is a clinician, academician, and digital health leader whose work sits at the intersection of medicine, artificial intelligence, digital health, and healthcare transformation. He currently serves as Deputy Dean of the School of Digital Health at KPJ Healthcare University, and leads initiatives in medical AI, digital innovation, AI governance, workforce AI-readiness, and healthcare leadership across academia and healthcare systems.

His interests focus on translating emerging technologies into practical clinical, educational, and organizational solutions, while advancing responsible, ethical, and human-centered adoption of artificial intelligence in healthcare.

(1) Introduction to the lecture

Norie KAWAHARA opened the sixth lecture of the Spring 2026 semester of the Surviving Cancer in Asia: Cross-boundary Cancer Studies lecture series by returning to the founding premise of the course: that cancer is a mirror of society, revealing through who is diagnosed early, who is treated, and who survives, the structure of society itself — who is trusted, who is seen, and who is left behind. She reminded students that the previous five lectures had explored this mirror at three layers — global, community, and individual — and had then turned to the institutional design required to translate those insights into prevention.

At the global layer, Dr. Nozaki had shown that Asia is aging faster than any healthcare system was designed to handle, and that in a world of rising treatment costs prevention is not optional but a condition of economic survival, without which universal health coverage cannot hold. At the community layer, Dr. Shinkafi-Bagudu’s account of cervical cancer in rural Nigeria had reframed the last mile as a trust problem rather than a logistics problem: prevention travels through people, through beauty salons, through religious leaders, and through the voices communities already listen to. At the individual layer, Dr. Yasunaga of CYBERDYNE had identified a different barrier — that people fail to exercise not because they lack information but because they have never felt a first success, and that robotic technology can deliver that first felt experience of “I can stand, I can walk,” from which motivation, habit, and health then build.

Together, the three layers pointed to a single conclusion: prevention is essential at every level, but does not happen on its own, rather it must be designed. Lecture 4 had taken that question to Malaysia, where roughly 90% of workplaces are small enterprises with limited capacity to fund prevention, and where the cost of non-communicable diseases in 2021 reached 64 billion ringgit, or 4.2% of GDP, paid not through hospital bills but through lost productivity. Professor Hoe and Dr. Muralli’s Integrated Workplace Health Programme had responded by redesigning the workplace itself as a structured community in which environment and policy, rather than individual willpower, drive behavior change, bringing screening to the worker and information through trusted channels.

Lecture 5, delivered by Professor Murakami, had then provided the structural frame. With Japan’s population having peaked at 128 million in 2008 and projected to fall to approximately 71 million by 2100, the logic of investment in a shrinking economy shifts from competitive parallel investment toward shared investment in collaborative domains — digital infrastructure, data platforms, authentication systems — that no single sector owns but all sectors use together. Within that frame, Prof. Murakami had argued that well-being is not the goal but the methodology, the only concept powerful enough to draw healthcare, transportation, education, and finance to a common table and so unlock cross-sector collaboration.

The arc of the previous lectures had therefore established that prevention must be designed, must cross sectors, and must reach people rather than only systems, leaving open the question of what this looks like when the private sector commits to it as an investment rather than a cost. 

Dr. Kawahara introduced Dr. Ahmad Syahid Mohd Fadzil as the speaker positioned to address that question from inside one of Malaysia’s largest private hospital networks. Dr. Kawahara emphasized that the combination of clinical practice with technological capability is unusual in the same individual but corresponds precisely to the intersection toward which the course had been pointing: without the clinical side, digital health becomes a platform without patients, and without the technical side, good intentions become programs that never reach anyone.

(2) Public–Private Partnerships & Corporate Health Management: Closing the Care Gap Through Healthcare Digital Transformation, Partnership & Shared Value

AHMAD Syahid Mohd Fadzil opened by noting that his aim was to share experiences from Malaysia, and from KPJ Healthcare in particular, and to explore opportunities for mutual learning between Malaysia and Japan in moving toward healthier and more sustainable societies.

The most valuable asset

Dr. Ahmad opened by asking what the most valuable asset is. He observed that in a public setting many people would name a house, a car, or savings; in a business school, capital; at an AI conference, data, artificial intelligence, or Bitcoin; and at a university, knowledge. While each of these is undeniably important, he proposed a different perspective: the most valuable asset is health, not because health is more important than knowledge or innovation but because it enables them. Without health, education becomes difficult, productivity declines, innovation slows, and opportunities diminish. 

As a physician, he had repeatedly observed that when serious illness arrives, the priorities that once seemed most important become secondary. He suggested that this may be why many societies continue to treat health primarily as a cost — a healthcare cost, an insurance cost, government expenditure — rather than as one of the most important investments a society can make. Reframing health as an investment was the central idea he proposed to develop throughout the lecture.

The central paradox of modern healthcare

Before discussing solutions, Dr. Ahmad set out the challenge facing healthcare systems. The present era is in many respects the healthiest in human history: people are living longer, medical science continues to deliver breakthroughs, and technology has transformed diagnosis, treatment, and disease management. Yet healthcare systems around the world face persistent challenges, including aging populations, rising chronic disease, increasing costs, and shortages of healthcare professionals. The result is a central paradox: more innovation and more medical knowledge than ever before, yet significant health gaps remain and access to care is still uneven. The question is therefore not whether solutions exist — in many cases they already do — but how to ensure that innovation creates value for everyone and reaches the people who most need it. This is the context in which partnerships, digital transformation, and new models of healthcare delivery become critical.

Health as invisible infrastructure

Dr. Ahmad continued by reframing health as a form of societal infrastructure. When most people think of infrastructure, they think of roads, airports, power grids, and digital networks. However, one of the most important forms of infrastructure is often invisible. Health underpins almost every aspect of a functioning society. In education, healthy students are better able to learn, develop, and realize their potential. In the workforce, health enables productivity, innovation, and sustainable economic growth. At the community level, health strengthens social participation, resilience, and cohesion. At the national level, health supports economic prosperity and long-term development. For this reason, he argued, healthcare should not be viewed as merely a sector that treats illness, but as a strategic investment in human capital and societal well-being. When health systems perform well, societies flourish. When they do not, the consequences extend far beyond hospitals and clinics, into education, productivity, communities, and the broader economy.

The ambulance and the cliff

Dr. Ahmad illustrated this point with a public health analogy. Imagine a community living near a steep cliff. One day, a person falls and is seriously injured. The community responds by investing in ambulances, emergency services, hospitals, and doctors. These are essential, and every healthcare system needs them. However, if people continue to fall from the cliff, a different question must be asked: why are they falling in the first place? Investigation may reveal poor lighting, damaged pathways, or missing guardrails. In other words, the root causes lie upstream. Hospitals, doctors, nurses, and emergency care will always be necessary, but the greatest value is often created before a patient ever enters a hospital — through prevention, health education, early screening, healthy workplaces, and healthier communities. The most effective healthcare systems are therefore not only those that treat illness well, but those that also prevent it from occurring in the first place.

Who builds the guardrails?

If prevention is the guardrail, the next question is who builds and maintains it. Historically, much of that responsibility has fallen on governments and on healthcare providers, yet health is shaped by far more than healthcare alone. Workplaces and universities influence stress levels, physical activity, and daily habits. Schools shape health literacy and lifelong behaviors from an early age. Technology increasingly affects how people access information, engage with healthcare services, and manage their own health. Communities shape social support networks, lifestyles, and the environments in which people live. Health is therefore not created solely in hospitals or clinics, but rather in homes, schools, universities, workplaces, and communities every day. If health is a shared responsibility, then investment in health must also be a shared responsibility, and partnerships between public sectors, private sectors, educational institutions, and communities become necessary for creating healthier societies.

Healthcare digital transformation as a people-centered strategy

Turning to digital transformation, Dr. Ahmad noted that when most people think of digital transformation in healthcare they think of the technology itself — software, devices, artificial intelligence, data analytics, and digital platforms. While these are important, focusing solely on technology misses the point. At its core, digital transformation is about people. It is about connecting patients with healthcare providers and systems more effectively, and ensuring that the right information is available at the right place and the right time. The patient remains at the center of the healthcare journey, whether the context is prevention, diagnosis, treatment, or follow-up care. Technology is not the destination but a tool, an enabler. The real goal is a healthcare system that is more accessible, more efficient, more equitable, and ultimately more human, and that, when implemented well, becomes more connected, more personalized, and more responsive to patient needs.

A tale of two futures

Dr. Ahmad illustrated the value of this approach through what he termed a tale of two futures. He asked students to imagine two individuals of the same age living in the same city, both beginning to develop type 2 diabetes (Figure 1). 

The first, on a green pathway, has the condition detected early through screening, leading to early diagnosis, education, lifestyle support, and ongoing monitoring. The result is a maintained quality of life, continued productivity, family support, and the avoidance of many costly complications. 

The second, on a red pathway, remains undiagnosed for years, and their first encounter with the healthcare system occurs only after a serious complication or emergency admission. Treatment then becomes more complex, more expensive, and often less effective, with consequences extending beyond health into productivity, family well-being, and healthcare costs. 

The difference between the two futures is determined not solely by medicine but by how early risk is identified, how effectively intervention occurs, and how well the individual is supported through their health journey. Digital transformation, he argued, can create significant value by enabling earlier detection, better coordination of care, and more proactive health management.

From sick care to health care

These examples pointed to the need for a fundamental shift in how healthcare is conceived. Traditionally, healthcare systems have operated within a “sick care paradigm,” in which the primary focus is treating established disease, often through interventions that occur late in the patient journey; responsibility is placed largely on the healthcare sector; and healthcare spending is treated as an operational cost. If, however, the goal is to improve population health and create sustainable healthcare systems, a shift toward a “health care paradigm” is required. (Figure 2). 

In the health care paradigm, the focus moves from treating disease to keeping populations healthy for longer; the emphasis moves from late intervention to early prevention and health education; responsibility becomes shared across governments, healthcare providers, workplaces, communities, and individuals; and investment in health promotion, prevention, and digital health is viewed not as a cost but as a long-term investment in human capital and societal well-being. This shift, he stated, is not merely a change of strategy but a change of mindset, from managing illness to creating better health.

Return on Health (ROH)

If health is a shared responsibility, then creating health must also be a shared goal, and this brings into view the concept of Return on Health (ROH). Unlike many investments that generate value in only one or two dimensions, investments in health generate returns across economic, social, and human dimensions simultaneously. Dr. Ahmad identified four illustrative components. 

First, public–private partnerships are essential because no single organization can address today’s healthcare challenges alone: governments, healthcare providers, industry, universities, and communities each bring distinctive strengths and together can accelerate impact at scale. 

Second, organizations must embrace corporate health responsibility (CHR): healthy employees are more resilient, more engaged, and more productive, so investing in health is both a societal responsibility and a sound business strategy. 

Third, there are opportunities for cross-border collaboration, exemplified by the complementary strengths of Japan’s leadership in healthy aging and Malaysia’s growing experience in digital health implementation. 

Fourth, the true measure of success is not how many technologies are deployed or how many partnerships are signed, but whether lives are improved, health inequities reduced, and lasting value created for society. Health, he stated, is one of the most powerful investments that can be made in collective future well-being.

The workplace as a health ecosystem

If health is created in everyday environments, then one of the most important of those environments is the workplace. Most adults spend more time at work than in any other setting outside the home, and as a result organizations influence health every day, whether intentionally or unintentionally. The workplace shapes daily routines, stress levels, social interactions, physical activity, nutrition, and mental well-being, and these influences accumulate over time to affect both individual health outcomes and organizational performance. 

Dr. Ahmad argued that the workplace should therefore be recognized as a primary health ecosystem. The question is no longer whether organizations affect health, which they already do, but how intentionally they choose to do so. Forward-looking organizations are increasingly creating environments that support physical, mental, and social well-being, on the recognition that healthier employees are more engaged, more productive, and more resilient. 

In this view, corporate health management is not merely an employee benefit but a strategic investment in people, performance, and long-term organizational sustainability.

From Corporate Social Responsibility to Corporate Health Responsibility

If the workplace is recognized as a health ecosystem, then the way organizations contribute to health must also be reconsidered. Traditionally, organizations have approached this through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), which has been widely adopted over recent decades. CSR efforts have typically focused on external activities such as charitable donations, community projects, and sponsorships, and have often been treated as peripheral to the core business. 

Dr. Ahmad proposed an evolution toward what he called Corporate Health Responsibility (CHR), in which health becomes both an internal and an external responsibility. Under CHR, the focus expands to include employee well-being, mental health, preventive health programs, and the creation of healthier organizational cultures. This is not a welfare initiative but a strategic business priority. Rather than measuring success solely by amounts donated through CSR programs, organizations can measure the health, resilience, and well-being they have created, particularly within their own communities. Healthy organizations, he stated, are built by healthy people, and investing in employee health is therefore one of the most prudent investments an organization can make.

Measuring health as an investment

The next question Dr. Ahmad addressed was whether health can be measured like an investment. Although health expenditure has traditionally been viewed as a cost, closer examination shows that investment in health generates returns across multiple dimensions. 

At the human level, health investment yields healthy years gained and preventable illnesses avoided, directly improving quality of life for individuals and their families. At the social level, healthier populations contribute to stronger communities and reduce pressure on healthcare systems, generating value for society as a whole. At the economic level, organizations and nations benefit through higher workforce productivity, better talent retention, and reduced absenteeism, which contribute to organizational performance and economic growth (Figure 3)

Crucially, these returns are interconnected: human returns drive social returns, and social returns in turn contribute to economic returns. For this reason, it is advisable to think not only in terms of return on investment (ROI), familiar in corporate environments, but also in terms of Return on Health (ROH), since health is one of the few investments capable of generating value simultaneously for individuals, organizations, communities, and society.

Lessons from Japan’s leadership in health and productivity

Dr. Ahmad noted that many colleagues in Malaysia have followed Japan’s experience in healthy aging and workforce well-being with sustained interest. Japan has demonstrated leadership in recognizing the relationship between health, productivity, and long-term societal sustainability, particularly in the context of demographic challenges that many other countries are now beginning to encounter. He highlighted in particular how Japan has increasingly framed health not simply as a healthcare issue but as a productivity issue, a resilience issue, and ultimately a societal issue. 

Programs that integrate workforce well-being into organizational strategy demonstrate that health is not merely a welfare initiative but a strategic investment supporting economic sustainability and social resilience. For countries such as Malaysia, there is much to learn from Japan’s experience. The Japanese case suggests that investing in health is increasingly not a luxury but a prerequisite for sustainable development, organizational competitiveness, and national resilience.

Responsible private-sector engagement

As healthcare challenges grow more complex, the private sector has an increasingly important role to play. The question is no longer whether businesses should participate in health, but how they can contribute responsibly and meaningfully. Responsible private-sector engagement extends beyond financial returns to create value for employees, patients, communities, and society as a whole. This includes improving access to care, supporting health equity, strengthening community well-being, and investing in long-term societal outcomes. Organizations must recognize that business success and societal success are interconnected: healthier communities create stronger workforces, more resilient economies, and more sustainable markets, and in turn organizations that invest in health contribute to stronger and more prosperous societies. Shared value is created when organizations thrive alongside the communities they serve.

The KPJ system: beyond hospital walls

To make this concept tangible, Dr. Ahmad introduced a Malaysian perspective through the KPJ system. Healthcare organizations have traditionally been defined by the hospitals they operate, but the role of healthcare organizations now extends far beyond hospital walls. KPJ increasingly views health as a continuum that begins long before a patient enters a hospital, and its activities accordingly include community health programs, prevention and screening initiatives, evidence-based health education and empowerment, workforce upskilling and development, and digital innovation. At the same time, KPJ recognizes the importance of building resilient health systems capable of responding to current and future challenges. These efforts are guided by a common principle: healthcare should focus not only on treating illness but on creating healthier communities, reflecting the broader shift from reactive care toward proactive health creation.

Why public–private partnerships matter

This brings into focus the importance of public–private partnerships. Today’s healthcare challenges are too complex and too interconnected to be addressed by any single organization. Each stakeholder contributes something distinctive: governments provide policy direction, governance, and leadership; industry contributes innovation, investment, and the ability to scale solutions; universities generate research, evidence, and the next generation of talent; healthcare providers translate ideas into real-world practice and patient care; and patients and communities themselves contribute lived experience, local knowledge, and a deeper understanding of what people truly need. The strength of partnerships lies not in bringing together similar organizations but in bringing together complementary strengths. When different stakeholders work toward a common goal they can achieve outcomes that would be difficult for any single organization to accomplish alone. Better health outcomes are rarely the result of a single institution. They are the result of collaboration, trust, and shared purpose. Partnerships combine strengths and accelerate impact.

What Japan and Malaysia could build together

In terms of prospects for Japan–Malaysia collaboration,  the most important question is not what Japan or Malaysia can achieve independently but what they might achieve together. The two countries share many of the same challenges, including aging populations, chronic disease, workforce sustainability, and rising healthcare demands. Japan brings strengths in healthy aging, healthcare innovation, and workforce productivity, while Malaysia is actively developing capabilities in digital health implementation, community engagement, health system transformation, and digital health education. The most promising opportunities lie in the overlap between these strengths. Together, the two countries can explore collaborations in artificial intelligence, population health research, digital health innovation, and cross-border talent development. By combining Japan’s experience with Malaysia’s growing digital health ecosystem, the two countries have the opportunity to create solutions that benefit not only themselves but the wider region (Figure 4) 

Conclusion: Return on Health

In closing, Dr. Ahmad returned to the central idea of his lecture: health is not merely an outcome of development but an enabler of development. The lecture had explored how health influences education, productivity, communities, and economic resilience; the importance of placing people at the center of healthcare; the value of building partnerships rather than working in silos; and the case for creating shared value rather than simply sharing costs. 

The Return on Health is measured not only in financial terms but in healthier lives, stronger communities, and better futures for generations to come. Combining innovation with collaboration and technology with human-centered thinking, he argued, offers the opportunity to build healthcare systems that are not only more efficient but also more equitable, resilient, sustainable, and humane. He closed with the comment that health is not a cost to be managed but an investment to be nurtured, and that the greatest return is a healthier society.

(3) Student Assignment

Students were given the following assignment.

Today’s lecture discussed health, digital technology, and AI. Please answer the following question: How can AI help people live healthier lives?

(4) Discussion

Dr. Kawahara opened the discussion by noting that the lecture had reframed health as an investment in people, communities, and the future of society, and had reminded students that healthcare is not only about hospitals, treatment, or technology but about the social systems that allow people to live, work, learn, and age with dignity. She expressed appreciation for Dr. Ahmad’s vision of Japan–Malaysia collaboration, in which Japan’s experience in healthy aging, prevention, and health productivity could be combined with Malaysia’s potential in digital implementation, community outreach, and public–private partnership to create a new model for Asia, and asked what kind of collaboration the two countries might begin with first.

Dr. Ahmad replied that the most practical starting point would be talent development and knowledge exchange, particularly in digital health and healthy aging, where the complementary strengths of the two countries are clearest. Rather than beginning with large-scale projects, he suggested student exchanges, joint workshops, collaborative research projects, and faculty exchanges as initiatives that would allow the two countries to build relationships, understand each other’s healthcare systems, and identify areas of mutual interest. Over time, such collaborations could evolve into joint research programs, digital health innovation projects, and broader healthcare partnerships benefiting both countries and the wider region.

Dr. Kawahara then asked how the use of personal health data by workplaces and companies as part of digital transformation should balance privacy protection with the promotion of health. Dr. Ahmad replied that this is a critical question for any organization handling personal healthcare data. KPJ Healthcare, with over 40 years of data, holds one of the largest healthcare data pools in the region, and protection of that data must be governed by both legal and organizational policy. The key principle is that trust must come before technology.  Employees must clearly understand what data are being collected, why, how they will be used, and who will have access. Accordingly, transparency and informed consent are essential. Organizations should focus on using health data to support well-being rather than surveillance, and data should where possible be aggregated, anonymized, and governed through clear policies protecting individual privacy. The objective should be to create healthier workplaces and provide appropriate support, not to monitor employees. Privacy protection and health promotion are not competing goals, because with strong governance, ethical safeguards, and transparency it is possible to achieve both. 

Dr. Kawahara then noted Dr. Ahmad’s interdisciplinary career path — physician, MBA holder, clinical AI specialist, digital health practitioner — and asked what had motivated this trajectory and what advice he would give young people seeking to shape their own intellectual journeys. Dr. Ahmad replied that his interest in medicine began in high school when a fellow student became ill and he wished to learn more about how to help. After completing a biomedical science degree as a foundation, he had been offered places in pharmacogenetics and nanomedicine in the United States but chose instead to pursue medicine. Following his medical training his clinical interest in sports cardiology was complemented by an interest in the future of medicine, particularly in AI and digital health as means of reaching underserved areas. In Malaysia, many remote areas cannot be reached by hospital or healthcare services, and digital health, telemedicine, AI, and robotics offered ways of assisting them. His motivation was both to help improve the healthcare system and to engage more patients, particularly in underserved communities. An MBA had further broadened his perspective, and he encouraged students to explore fields outside their primary domain, observing that human potential is limitless. 

A student asked how the line should be drawn between personal responsibility and corporate responsibility for health, given that the workplace had been described as a health ecosystem. Dr. Ahmad replied that different individuals have different perspectives on their own health, and that some employees regard themselves as healthy as long as they can work and receive their salary. Organizations therefore have a duty to be proactive — particularly in health screening — because corporate health responsibility can change both organizational practice and individual behavior. Organizations should emphasize the importance not only of physical health but also of mental and social well-being, as defined by the WHO. Healthy individuals create healthy organizations, which in turn contribute to healthy economies. Individuals also need to understand why their organizations are paying greater attention to their health, which is not a sign of illness but a contribution to well-being. He noted that in many developing countries declining population health reflects not only lifestyle and diet but also workplace stress, and that mental health distress is often underreported, with employees normalizing prolonged overwork. Organizations should recognize their role in communicating where to stop and where to seek help.

A student asked which specific Japan–Malaysia collaborative projects might have the greatest impact over the next three to five years. Dr. Ahmad identified two priority areas. First, healthy aging: Malaysia is now beginning to face what Japan has faced over the past decade, with longer life expectancy bringing the need to support not only the health but also the independence and financial sustainability of older people. 

A second area is digital health, including remote patient monitoring and AI-enabled solutions, which can extend specialist consultations to remote areas without requiring patients to travel long distances. He added that Malaysia is also emphasizing value-based integrated care (VBIC) and value-based healthcare (VBHC), under which individuals are empowered to be more resilient and to monitor their own health. He stated that KPJ University would welcome interest from the University of Tokyo in collaboration, whether at university level or as a pilot project at a KPJ hospital.

A student asked how the Return on Health could be quantitatively measured in real-world public–private partnership projects, and what indicators might evaluate whether a health investment had generated economic and social value. Dr. Ahmad acknowledged that the concept is still in development. By analogy with the established ROI and ROV (return on value), Return on Health can be measured first through improvement in health outcomes. Second, key performance indicators such as absenteeism, medical-certificate issuance, productivity, and days lost to complications from chronic diseases such as diabetes provide comparators before and after the implementation of health programs. Third, organizational happiness indices, and what Dr. Ahmad described as a burnout index — one of his pilot projects — can capture mental as well as physical outcomes. Overwork affecting people from their early 30s onward, he noted, is a significant concern. He emphasized that ROH measurement must be customized to each organization’s own population analysis, and described the concept as still preliminary and expandable. Where organizations provide medical benefits, corporate health responsibility (CHR) programs may also contribute to cost-saving as part of strategic planning.

A student asked how healthcare digital transformation could be ensured to reduce inequality rather than unintentionally widen the digital divide. Dr. Ahmad agreed that the risk is real, particularly in developing countries. Digital health solutions tend to be designed for urban, digitally literate populations with reliable internet access, while underserved, village, and remote populations may not benefit. If not properly governed, digital solutions can widen rather than narrow the gap. The remedy lies first in groundwork: in Malaysia, 5G coverage has reached approximately 82.4% of the country and is expected to reach 98% within two years, providing a sufficient base for digital health rollouts such as remote post-surgical wound monitoring via mobile phone. The second remedy is digital literacy, particularly in non-urban areas where language barriers and user-unfriendly interfaces can create additional obstacles. He noted how during the COVID-19 pandemic Malaysia’s MySejahtera application — initially for vaccination records and later expanded to monitor well-being and serve as a personal health record — had accelerated digital adoption across the population, narrowing the gap to some extent. 

AI introduces a further dimension, since AI uses patient data for training and is subject to bias and to hallucination. Such risks are not yet fully mitigated. For digital health more broadly, however, he viewed the present as the appropriate time to explore the possibilities.

Mr. Ikram asked what governance framework should be built between Malaysia and Japan to make data sharing across public and private institutions, universities, and overseas partners both trusted and scalable, and how Malaysian patient data could be protected while still permitting research, AI development, and benchmarking with foreign partners. Dr. Ahmad described data as the “digital oil” of the present age. KPJ, as one of Malaysia’s largest private healthcare providers, holds approximately 90 petabytes of data, which is being digitized into a data lake. From the government side, Malaysia maintains rules on public data that require caution, and a key technical challenge is data structure: not all data are in the same format, and unstructured data create difficulties for analytics, particularly across borders where formats differ between countries. Interoperability and the additional layer of data synchronization therefore become important. KPJ is structuring its own data to be research-, project-, and sharing-friendly, in compliance with international research standards and ethics committee approval. 

Cross-border collaborations should be guided by both parties’ policies and KPJ already collaborates on encrypted, anonymized concurrent data sharing with The Validitron at the University of Melbourne, providing a template that could be aligned with University of Tokyo policies if desired. 

KPJ’s relationship with the Malaysian government, and the government’s awareness of KPJ’s data work, could support such arrangements. Dr. Ahmad emphasized that trust is required not only between institutions but in the data itself, which must be reliable, validated, and standardized to make collaborative outcomes trustworthy. 

Dr. Kawahara closed the session by reflecting that the lecture had provided not only knowledge but a direction — from sick care to health care, from isolated systems to integrated information, and from shared cost to shared value — and thanked Dr. Ahmad for helping students imagine what Return on Health could mean for Asia and for the future.