Fujifilm continues to demonstrate its leadership on health sustainability
Social Issues
One of the goals set out under SDGs is to "achieve universal health coverage (UHC), ensuring that all people can access essential quality health services without facing financial hardship." UHC requires the development of medical infrastructure that makes healthcare and medical services readily available to all, improvement in medical care quality and society that places top priority on health, with emphasis on disease prevention and early detection.
Goals under Sustainable Value Plan 2030
- Fulfil unmet medical needs.
- Improve accessibilities to medical services.
- Contribute to early disease detection.
Health is a theme of great importance and attracts the highest level of interest from people. However, there are many issues to be addressed—not only in terms of unmet medical needs, but also other issues that include the medical divide, the shortage of doctors, the increased burden on doctors and high medical expenses. Also protecting our employees' health is a significant responsibility for the company because our employees are the foundation of our business activities. Fujifilm Group began its X-ray film in 1936, soon after the company was established. Today, the scope of our businesses have expanded into prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases in our drive to become a "total health company." We will mobilize its technologies, products and services to resolving various issues and contributing to further improving the quality of medical care and better health for all.
1. Fulfill Unmet Medical Needs
Target for 2030 - Develop and disseminate new treatments based on regenerative medicine and cell therapy.
The Fujifilm Group is striving forward in the development and dissemination of new therapies for unmet medical needs, where effective treatment is still to be found. Fujifilm possesses the highly functional material synthetic technologies and engineering skills that we have gained through our photographic film development and production, including advanced nano dispersion technology, analysis technology, and production engineering technologies. We are actively seeking synergetic collaborations with business partners who also possess superior technologies, in order to develop new solutions in regenerative medicine and cell therapy and improve accessibility to such advanced treatments.
2. Improve Accessibilities to Medical Services
Target for 2030
(1) Reducing burden on doctors and medical staff by utilizing IT
(2) Development and dissemination of infectious disease diagnostic system to contribute to global health
(3) Offering technical diagnosis training and spreading effective health practices to emerging countries
The rapid aging of society is proceeding, and population and economic growth are advancing in emerging countries. As a result, these countries are experiencing expanding medical demands, giving rise to a variety of problems, such as the insufficient number of doctors and nurses, their harsh working conditions, and regional disparities in medical services. The death rate from infectious diseases is still high in developing countries, and eradication of infectious diseases, such as AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, is also one of the SDGs. The Fujifilm Group is contributing to the establishment of a sound medical environment and to supporting medical staff to realize disease prevention, make early diagnoses, and provide early treatment through combining our exclusive technologies acquired over the years with the large volume of data we have accumulated in the medical IT field, and with AI technology.
3. Contribute to Early Disease Detection
Target for 2030
Reduce the physical burden through widespread and expanded use of medical diagnostic systems.
To maintain our health, it is important to detect diseases at an early stage even if there are no recognized symptoms, or take countermeasures for unpleasant symptoms before they have reached the level of disease. However, one in three Japanese people still do not take a regular health check* regardless of the seemingly wide understanding of the necessity for such proactive health checks. The Fujifilm Group contributes to the early detection and treatment of diseases through making easy-to-use self-health check systems widely available across society.
* The FY2014 National Health and Nutrition Survey by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare reported that among people of ages 20 and above in Japan, 27.8% of males and 37.1% of females had not undergone a health check (general health check, health examination or complete medical examination) within the last year.
“Green Value Products”
Fujifilm Group has also further committed to new targets for environmentally conscious products and services by considering environmental impacts in the process of developing these products and services. Products and services that aim to significantly reduce environmental impacts are certified as Fujifilm Group “Green Value Products” and FUJIFILM Holdings has introduced a new group-wide target to bring the sales ratio of “Green Value Products” to 60% of the group’s total sales also by FY230.
The criteria for “Green Value Products”, designed in compliance with ISO14021, include addressing climate change, recycling resources, reducing environmental risks such as the use of hazardous substances, and reducing waste. The program defines group-wide certification ranks (Diamond, Gold and Silver) and has certified 140 items since 2018.
Synapse PACS (Silver), as an industry-leading medical imaging and information management system, Synapse® PACS, offers significant resource, space and time saving to healthcare organizations. As just one example of approximately 650 installs across Europe, ASST Vimercate Hospital, a main customer and partner of Fujfilm Italia SpA, operates a high-tech and paperless structure due to the complete computerization of all its clinical-health processes thanks to the Synapse® platform. This means patient records can be easily managed at the patient’s bedside, or anywhere throughout the hospital.
