Conclusion

At Takeda General, the largest hospital of Aizuwakamatsu, patients use their smartphones to pay their bills. The payment system is an experiment for using QR codes for electronic payments. “We want to make things easier by using QR codes; not only for paying hospital bills, but also for taxes, transport and regular purchases,” says Keisuke Kobayashi, the representative of TIS company which developed the system. It also aims to reduce the time people spend in hospitals by offering services such as online appointment booking and drug delivery. The company also envisions preventive healthcare services such as distance medical care and AI-based diagnostics. Other companies also work hard at Aizuwakamatsu, Japan, improving mobility, education, energy, agriculture, and production and making them smarter. These include NEC, Toppan Printing, Coca-Cola, SoftBank Group, and Mitsubishi, which cooperate under the umbrella of the Accenture Innovation Center (AiCT). “Unless you have an explicitly permitted acceptance model to collect personal data on each service, you cannot gain trust,” says Shojiro Nakamura, Accenture consultant overseeing the project. “Without the trust of the residents, smart urban developments are destined to fail.”