Seoul National University Bundang Hospital Deploys AI ECG Triage, Achieving 9-Fold Reduction in Delayed Heart Attack Treatment

Seoul National University Bundang Hospital (SNUBH) in South Korea has been validated at the highest level of the modernised HIMSS Adoption Model for Analytics Maturity (AMAM), becoming the first hospital in the Asia-Pacific region and the second globally to achieve this milestone. SNUBH centralized intelligence through its proprietary CDW 3.0 data platform, which aggregates diverse hospital data including medical records, tests, and prescriptions for on-demand analysis. The hospital's most significant AI deployment is the ECG Buddy AI-driven ECG triage system, which reduced the door-to-balloon time for treating ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) to approximately 8 minutes, resulting in a 9-fold reduction in the proportion of delayed percutaneous coronary intervention cases. For hyperkalemia treatment, the time to IV calcium administration was reduced to approximately 40 to 50 minutes. For pulmonary oedema patients, the time to furosemide administration was similarly reduced. SNUBH adopted a phased approach to AI implementation with protocols developed under the leadership of clinical departments rather than enforcing top-down deployment, a strategy essential for building clinical trust. The transition to robust AI governance and proving clinical safety and efficacy of predictive models was the most significant challenge in meeting Stage 7 AMAM requirements. The hospital restructured its clinical feedback loop for continuous AI safety, introduced rigorous pilot testing within real-world clinical settings, and established a governance system reviewing AI model accuracy, sensitivity, and error hotspots by patient cohort. SNUBH holds four consecutive HIMSS EMRAM Stage 7 validations and has exported its EHR system to the Middle East, United States, and Japan.