The University of the Philippines (UP) Manila will begin offering courses on medical imaging to radiographers, medical officers, and information technology in May.

This follows the state university's signing of a memorandum of understanding with FUJIFILM Healthcare Asia Pacific (HCAP) PTE. LTD in March.

According to UP Manila Chancellor Michael Tee, the partnership is grounded in its commitment to provide quality healthcare to Filipinos through its long line of dedicated health professionals trained to heal using the latest cutting-edge technology.

"This is part of our response to President Marcos’ instruction during last November [Private Sector Advisory Council] meeting to offer undergraduate program for radiation technology in UP Manila and other state universities and colleges."

"This upskilling program will help ensure that our future faculty are kept abreast with the cutting-edge technology," Tee added.

Faculty members from Thailand's Mahidol University will lead the courses for the three FUJIFILM Asia-Pacific Healthcare Learning Academy (FAHLA) levels.

The first level of the course, Digital Imaging and Medical Informatics, is a foundation course that will lead to the second level, Medical Informatics Intermediate Picture Archiving and Communication Systems Certification Course. This will tackle data storage, network management, and security risk management.

Meanwhile, the third level is the Medical Informatics Advanced Course, which will tackle vendor-neutral archiving methods.

Noriyuki Kawakubo, managing director of the FUJIFILM HCAP in Singapore, said this is the company’s third collaboration with an academic institution following Mahidol University, the National University of Malaysia, and Universitas Airlangga in Indonesia.

“The establishment of the UP-FAHLA for regional advanced healthcare informatics is a testament to our shared vision of imparting healthcare professionals with cutting-edge knowledge in healthcare informatics, medical imaging, and AI innovations,” Kawakubo said.

HCAP is the leading provider of innovative diagnostic imaging solutions, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) systems, endoscopy systems, X-ray diagnostic systems, and diagnostic ultrasound systems.

“Our key objective is to close the gap by providing knowledge and skills that are relevant to modern healthcare,” Esnu Halim, director of FAHLA and Marketing head of FUJIFILM HCAP Singapore, added.