{
 "schema": 1,
 "id": "wooridul",
 "type": "facility",
 "names": {
  "name": "Wooridul Spine Hospital",
  "aliases": [
   "우리들병원",
   "Cheongdam Wooridul Spine Hospital",
   "Wooridul Hospital"
  ],
  "said": "WOO-ri-deul — uri-deul, ours, the plural of we. One thing only: backs."
 },
 "region": [
  "east-asia"
 ],
 "facets": {
  "iso2": "KR",
  "ownership": "private",
  "founded": 1982,
  "specialty": [
   "spine surgery",
   "neurosurgery",
   "orthopaedics",
   "rehabilitation medicine"
  ],
  "draws": [
   "spinal-fusion",
   "disc-replacement"
  ],
  "status": "open",
  "languages": [
   "Korean",
   "English",
   "Russian",
   "Arabic"
  ]
 },
 "text": {
  "what": "A single-specialty spine hospital in Cheongdam, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, founded in 1982 by the neurosurgeon Sang-Ho Lee and built entirely around the spine: neurosurgery, orthopaedics and rehabilitation medicine, and nothing else. The state's promotion body lists it at 240 beds and 30 doctors. It opened a department for foreign patients in 2006, three years before the state's own count of foreign patients starts, and was designated an international training centre for two spine-surgery societies in 2001.",
  "story": "The hospital's own milestone list reads as a single specialty widening without ever changing subject. Sangho Lee Neurosurgery Clinic in 1982; Dongrae Wooridul Hospital in 1984; Yeoksam Wooridul in 1992; the Cheongdam headquarters in 1999. The Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare selected it as a specialty hospital in spine diseases in 2005 and again under the formal scheme in 2011.\n\nThe foreign practice came from the teaching, not from a marketing department. In 2001 the hospital was designated an international training centre by ISMISS and IMLAS — the minimally invasive spine surgery societies — and in 2002 an international training centre and Korean branch of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons. The Wooridul International Patient Center opened in 2006. Korea's own count of foreign patients begins in 2009, and the Act that governs registration now dates from 2015. *Inference —* the sequence puts Wooridul among the first Korean hospitals to build a foreign-patient practice, and it built it by training the surgeons who would refer, which is a slower route than an accreditation and a harder one to buy.\n\nThen the hospital went the other way. Shanghai in 2009, Jakarta in 2010, Istanbul and Dubai in 2011, Singapore in 2012. The current site lists two of them — Dubai, inside King's College Hospital London Dubai, and Abu Dhabi — alongside the five Korean sites, and says nothing about the rest; this record notes the difference between the two lists and makes no finding about what happened to the others.\n\nWhat the Abu Dhabi centre is worth reading closely. Healthpoint describes the Wooridul Spine Center as a partnership between Mubadala Health and the Seoul hospital, wholly owned by Mubadala, staffed by Korean spine surgeons, with its physiotherapists trained in Seoul, and it names the aim: to reduce the need for patients to travel abroad. *Inference —* that is a branch in the branding sense and an export in the commercial one. The hospital is not exporting a building. It is exporting the surgeon and the training, to a state that would rather buy the operation at home than send the patient and the fee to Korea.\n\nThe hospital's own greeting page calls it a \"world-class spine hospital\". This directory quotes that rather than asserting it, and carries no outcome figure, no complication rate and no volume count for the unit, because none was published on any page read here.",
  "how": "Foreign patients reach it through the International Patient Center opened in 2006. The state's Medical Korea listing names English, Russian and Arabic, western, Korean and halal catering, and direct billing with named international insurers — which is the part that matters to a Gulf patient whose treatment is paid for by somebody else. *Trade practice —* the Korean shape holds: registration with the ministry, an in-hospital international office, an estimate given on request, and no figure on the public pages.\n\nNothing is priced on any page read for this record.",
  "today": "As of 17 September 2026 the Korea Health Industry Development Institute's Medical Korea listing carries 240 beds, 30 doctors, KOIHA accreditation and three patient languages for the Hakdong-ro hospital. The hospital's own history page ends its overseas openings in 2012 and its current location list names Dubai and Abu Dhabi. No bed count, no founding figure and no foreign-patient number comes from the hospital itself; the counts here are the state body's."
 },
 "geo": {
  "lat": 37.51906,
  "lon": 127.04971,
  "precision": "street",
  "source": "s:osm-nominatim"
 },
 "address": {
  "street": "445 Hakdong-ro, Gangnam-gu",
  "city": "Seoul",
  "country": "KR",
  "postcode": "06068"
 },
 "metrics": {
  "beds": 240,
  "doctors": 30,
  "annual_patients": null,
  "annual_foreign_patients": null,
  "note": "Beds and doctors are the Korea Health Industry Development Institute's listing for the Hakdong-ro hospital, not a figure the hospital publishes about itself, and they cover that site rather than the five-site Korean group. No patient count of any kind is published on the pages read: not total, not foreign, not by operation. A single-specialty hospital's case volume would be the number worth having here, and it is the number nobody prints.",
  "as_of": "2026",
  "source": "s:medicalkorea-wooridul",
  "url": "https://www.medicalkorea.or.kr/en/mostvisitedmedicalinstitutions/view?medicalProviderNo=102"
 },
 "tags": [
  {
   "tag": "international-office",
   "source": "s:wooridul-history",
   "tier": "cited",
   "note": "the Wooridul International Patient Center opened in 2006, three years before the state's own count of foreign patients starts",
   "url": "https://www.wooridul.com/introduce/history"
  },
  {
   "tag": "interpreter",
   "source": "s:medicalkorea-wooridul",
   "tier": "cited",
   "note": "English, Russian and Arabic named on the state body's listing, with western, Korean and halal catering"
  },
  {
   "tag": "insurer-direct",
   "source": "s:medicalkorea-wooridul",
   "tier": "cited",
   "note": "direct billing with named international insurers, listed by KHIDI"
  },
  {
   "tag": "teaching",
   "source": "s:wooridul-history",
   "tier": "cited",
   "note": "designated an international training centre by ISMISS and IMLAS in 2001 and by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in 2002; the founder's page names an International Training Center for doctors from abroad"
  },
  {
   "tag": "chain",
   "source": "s:wooridul-greetings",
   "tier": "cited",
   "note": "five Korean sites — Cheongdam, Gimpo Airport, Busan, Daegu, Gwangju — plus centres listed at Dubai and Abu Dhabi"
  },
  {
   "tag": "no-price-published",
   "source": "s:medicalkorea-wooridul",
   "tier": "cited",
   "note": "no figure on the state listing and none on the hospital's own pages read for this record"
  }
 ],
 "recognitions": [
  {
   "by": "kohta",
   "what": "KOIHA accreditation, listed by the Korea Health Industry Development Institute",
   "year": null,
   "valid_until": null,
   "source": "s:medicalkorea-wooridul",
   "url": "https://www.medicalkorea.or.kr/en/mostvisitedmedicalinstitutions/view?medicalProviderNo=102",
   "note": "the state listing names the accreditation and gives no year; separate from the compulsory ministry registration every Korean facility treating foreign patients must hold"
  },
  {
   "by": "other",
   "what": "Specialty hospital in spine diseases, designated by the Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare",
   "year": 2011,
   "valid_until": null,
   "source": "s:wooridul-history",
   "url": "https://www.wooridul.com/introduce/history",
   "note": "the hospital's history page records a first selection in 2005 and the designation under the formal scheme in 2011"
  }
 ],
 "kin": [
  {
   "to": "seoul",
   "as": "Sits in Cheongdam, in the Gangnam blocks the city's clinic trade is named for, and does none of the work that trade is known for.",
   "rel": "place"
  },
  {
   "to": "south-korea",
   "as": "Among the earliest Korean hospitals to build a foreign-patient practice, by training foreign surgeons before the state built a register.",
   "rel": "destination"
  },
  {
   "to": "spinal-fusion",
   "as": "One of the two operations this hospital exists to do, listed on the state's own page for it.",
   "rel": "performs"
  },
  {
   "to": "disc-replacement",
   "as": "The motion-preserving alternative to fusion; the Gulf centre staffed from this hospital lists it, and the Seoul pages read for this record do not.",
   "rel": "performs"
  },
  {
   "to": "korea-foreign-patient-registration",
   "as": "Operates under the registration every Korean facility treating foreign patients must hold — a regime whose counts start in 2009, three years after this hospital opened its foreign-patient centre.",
   "rel": "governed-by"
  },
  {
   "to": "severance",
   "as": "The other early Korean entrant, a 2,437-bed university hospital where this one is a single specialty.",
   "rel": "contrast"
  },
  {
   "to": "khidi",
   "as": "The state body whose listing supplies every number on this record.",
   "rel": "measured-by"
  },
  {
   "to": "getting-a-quote",
   "as": "An estimate on request and no published figure, which is the Korean pattern rather than this hospital's choice.",
   "rel": "step"
  }
 ],
 "links": [
  {
   "label": "Wooridul Spine Hospital",
   "url": "https://www.wooridul.com/"
  },
  {
   "label": "Wooridul Spine Hospital — history",
   "url": "https://www.wooridul.com/introduce/history"
  },
  {
   "label": "Medical Korea listing (KHIDI)",
   "url": "https://www.medicalkorea.or.kr/en/mostvisitedmedicalinstitutions/view?medicalProviderNo=102"
  }
 ],
 "sources": [
  "s:wooridul-history",
  "s:wooridul-greetings",
  "s:wooridul-location",
  "s:medicalkorea-wooridul",
  "s:healthpoint-wooridul-spine-centre",
  "s:khidi-medicalkorea",
  "s:osm-nominatim"
 ],
 "provenance": {
  "default": {
   "tier": "cited"
  },
  "fields": {
   "text.story": {
    "tier": "cited",
    "source": "s:wooridul-history",
    "note": "the milestone dates are the hospital's own history page, read 17 September 2026; the Abu Dhabi description is Healthpoint's own; the two stretches marked *Inference —* are this project's reading"
   },
   "text.how": {
    "tier": "tradition",
    "note": "the Korean route's shape; the languages, catering and direct billing are cited to the state listing"
   },
   "metrics": {
    "tier": "cited",
    "source": "s:medicalkorea-wooridul"
   },
   "geo": {
    "tier": "harvested",
    "source": "s:osm-nominatim",
    "note": "geocoded from the address on the hospital's own location page"
   }
  }
 },
 "x_commons_files": [
  "File:Wooridul Spine Hospital.jpg"
 ],
 "confidence": "medium",
 "needs_verification": true,
 "updated": "2026-09-17",
 "blurb": "A single-specialty spine hospital in Cheongdam, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, founded in 1982 by the neurosurgeon Sang-Ho Lee and built entirely around the spine: neurosurgery, orthopaedics and rehabilitation medicine, and nothing…",
 "region_terms": [
  {
   "key": "east-asia",
   "name": "East Asia",
   "note": "South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, China"
  }
 ],
 "kin_out": [
  {
   "to": "seoul",
   "type": "hub",
   "name": "Seoul",
   "as": "Sits in Cheongdam, in the Gangnam blocks the city's clinic trade is named for, and does none of the work that trade is known for.",
   "rel": "place"
  },
  {
   "to": "south-korea",
   "type": "destination",
   "name": "South Korea",
   "as": "Among the earliest Korean hospitals to build a foreign-patient practice, by training foreign surgeons before the state built a register.",
   "rel": "destination"
  },
  {
   "to": "spinal-fusion",
   "type": "procedure",
   "name": "Spinal fusion",
   "as": "One of the two operations this hospital exists to do, listed on the state's own page for it.",
   "rel": "performs"
  },
  {
   "to": "disc-replacement",
   "type": "procedure",
   "name": "Artificial disc replacement",
   "as": "The motion-preserving alternative to fusion; the Gulf centre staffed from this hospital lists it, and the Seoul pages read for this record do not.",
   "rel": "performs"
  },
  {
   "to": "korea-foreign-patient-registration",
   "type": "rule",
   "name": "Korea's foreign patient attraction registration",
   "as": "Operates under the registration every Korean facility treating foreign patients must hold — a regime whose counts start in 2009, three years after this hospital opened its foreign-patient centre.",
   "rel": "governed-by"
  },
  {
   "to": "severance",
   "type": "facility",
   "name": "Severance Hospital",
   "as": "The other early Korean entrant, a 2,437-bed university hospital where this one is a single specialty.",
   "rel": "contrast"
  },
  {
   "to": "khidi",
   "type": "org",
   "name": "Korea Health Industry Development Institute",
   "as": "The state body whose listing supplies every number on this record.",
   "rel": "measured-by"
  },
  {
   "to": "getting-a-quote",
   "type": "pathway",
   "name": "Getting a quote",
   "as": "An estimate on request and no published figure, which is the Korean pattern rather than this hospital's choice.",
   "rel": "step"
  }
 ],
 "source_list": [
  {
   "id": "s:wooridul-history",
   "kind": "web",
   "title": "History — Wooridul Spine Hospital",
   "publisher": "Wooridul Spine Hospital",
   "url": "https://www.wooridul.com/introduce/history",
   "accessed": "2026-09-17",
   "note": "the hospital's own dated milestone list: 1982 Sangho Lee Neurosurgery Clinic founded; 1984 Dongrae Wooridul Hospital; 1992 Yeoksam Wooridul Hospital; 1999 Cheongdam Wooridul Spine Hospital as headquarters; 2001 international training centre for ISMISS and IMLAS; 2002 international training centre and Korea branch of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons; 2005 and 2011 spine specialty hospital designations by the Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare; 2006 Wooridul International Patient Center; 2009 Shanghai; 2010 Jakarta; 2011 Istanbul and Dubai; 2012 Singapore; 2012 first medical institution certificate from the Ministry"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:wooridul-greetings",
   "kind": "web",
   "title": "Greetings — Wooridul Spine Hospital",
   "publisher": "Wooridul Spine Hospital",
   "url": "https://www.wooridul.com/introduce/greetings",
   "accessed": "2026-09-17",
   "note": "founder Dr Sang-Ho Lee's own page: a spine doctor since 1975, minimally invasive spine treatment, an International Training Center for doctors at home and abroad, and the hospital describing itself as a \"world-class spine hospital\". Current locations listed: Cheongdam, Gimpo Airport, Busan, Daegu, Gwangju, Dubai and Abu Dhabi"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:wooridul-location",
   "kind": "web",
   "title": "Location — Wooridul Spine Hospital",
   "publisher": "Wooridul Spine Hospital",
   "url": "https://wooridul.com/introduce/location",
   "accessed": "2026-09-17",
   "note": "headquarters address given as 445 Hakdong-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul 06068"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:medicalkorea-wooridul",
   "kind": "gov",
   "title": "Wooridul Spine Hospital — Medical Korea institution listing",
   "publisher": "Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI), Ministry of Health and Welfare",
   "url": "https://www.medicalkorea.or.kr/en/mostvisitedmedicalinstitutions/view?medicalProviderNo=102",
   "accessed": "2026-09-17",
   "note": "the state promotion body's own listing: 240 beds, 30 doctors, neurosurgery, orthopaedics and rehabilitation medicine, English, Russian and Arabic, western, Korean and halal meals, direct billing with named international insurers, KOIHA accreditation. No foreign patient count and no price"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:healthpoint-wooridul-spine-centre",
   "kind": "web",
   "title": "Wooridul Spine Center — Healthpoint, Abu Dhabi",
   "publisher": "Healthpoint / Mubadala Health",
   "url": "https://healthpoint.ae/services/wooridul-spine-center/",
   "accessed": "2026-09-17",
   "note": "describes the centre as a partnership between Mubadala Health and Wooridul Spine Hospital, wholly owned by Mubadala, staffed by South Korean spine surgeons, with physiotherapists trained at the Seoul hospital; the stated aim is to reduce the need for patients to travel abroad. No opening date on the page"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:khidi-medicalkorea",
   "kind": "org",
   "title": "About KHIDI — Medical Korea",
   "publisher": "Korea Health Industry Development Institute",
   "url": "http://www.medicalkorea.or.kr/en/aboutkhidi",
   "accessed": "2026-09-16",
   "note": "government-affiliated institution under the Ministry of Health and Welfare; the registration system, registered hospitals and registered facilitators"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:osm-nominatim",
   "kind": "dataset",
   "title": "Nominatim search over OpenStreetMap",
   "publisher": "OpenStreetMap contributors",
   "url": "https://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/",
   "license": "ODbL 1.0",
   "license_url": "https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1-0/",
   "accessed": "2026-09-16",
   "note": "queried by hand for the street and the point of each anchor hospital in this batch. A Nominatim answer is whatever a mapper typed and whatever the geocoder matched it to; the addr: tags are read here as the street, not as a postal address the hospital itself published."
  }
 ],
 "tiers": {
  "text.what": {
   "tier": "cited"
  },
  "text.story": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:wooridul-history",
   "note": "the milestone dates are the hospital's own history page, read 17 September 2026; the Abu Dhabi description is Healthpoint's own; the two stretches marked *Inference —* are this project's reading"
  },
  "text.how": {
   "tier": "tradition",
   "note": "the Korean route's shape; the languages, catering and direct billing are cited to the state listing"
  },
  "text.today": {
   "tier": "cited"
  },
  "geo": {
   "tier": "harvested",
   "source": "s:osm-nominatim",
   "note": "geocoded from the address on the hospital's own location page"
  },
  "address": {
   "tier": "cited"
  },
  "metrics": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:medicalkorea-wooridul"
  }
 },
 "primary_image": null,
 "tag_facts": [
  {
   "key": "international-office",
   "label": "International patient office",
   "icon": "✈",
   "group": "service",
   "evidence": "the hospital's own international-patient page, or a directory entry naming the department",
   "source": "s:wooridul-history",
   "note": "the Wooridul International Patient Center opened in 2006, three years before the state's own count of foreign patients starts",
   "tier": "cited",
   "url": "https://www.wooridul.com/introduce/history"
  },
  {
   "key": "interpreter",
   "label": "Interpreters on staff",
   "icon": "🗣",
   "group": "service",
   "evidence": "the facility's own page naming the languages, or a published inspection or accreditation report",
   "source": "s:medicalkorea-wooridul",
   "note": "English, Russian and Arabic named on the state body's listing, with western, Korean and halal catering",
   "tier": "cited",
   "url": ""
  },
  {
   "key": "insurer-direct",
   "label": "Bills foreign insurers",
   "icon": "📄",
   "group": "money",
   "evidence": "the facility names the insurers or schemes it bills directly",
   "source": "s:medicalkorea-wooridul",
   "note": "direct billing with named international insurers, listed by KHIDI",
   "tier": "cited",
   "url": ""
  },
  {
   "key": "teaching",
   "label": "Teaching hospital",
   "icon": "📚",
   "group": "clinical",
   "evidence": "a recognised training post list or the hospital's own statement",
   "source": "s:wooridul-history",
   "note": "designated an international training centre by ISMISS and IMLAS in 2001 and by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in 2002; the founder's page names an International Training Center for doctors from abroad",
   "tier": "cited",
   "url": ""
  },
  {
   "key": "chain",
   "label": "Part of a hospital group",
   "icon": "🔗",
   "group": "ownership",
   "evidence": "the group's own list of hospitals, or a filing naming the parent",
   "source": "s:wooridul-greetings",
   "note": "five Korean sites — Cheongdam, Gimpo Airport, Busan, Daegu, Gwangju — plus centres listed at Dubai and Abu Dhabi",
   "tier": "cited",
   "url": ""
  },
  {
   "key": "no-price-published",
   "label": "No published price",
   "icon": "—",
   "group": "money",
   "evidence": "the facility's own site carries no price for the procedures it advertises, checked on a dated visit",
   "source": "s:medicalkorea-wooridul",
   "note": "no figure on the state listing and none on the hospital's own pages read for this record",
   "tier": "cited",
   "url": ""
  }
 ],
 "recognition_facts": [
  {
   "key": "kohta",
   "label": "KOIHA / KAHF (South Korea)",
   "what": "KOIHA accreditation, listed by the Korea Health Industry Development Institute",
   "url": "https://www.medicalkorea.or.kr/en/mostvisitedmedicalinstitutions/view?medicalProviderNo=102",
   "kind": "national",
   "year": null,
   "valid_until": null,
   "source": "s:medicalkorea-wooridul"
  },
  {
   "key": "other",
   "label": "Somebody else",
   "what": "Specialty hospital in spine diseases, designated by the Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare",
   "url": "https://www.wooridul.com/introduce/history",
   "kind": "other",
   "year": 2011,
   "valid_until": null,
   "source": "s:wooridul-history"
  }
 ],
 "acclaim": 2,
 "kin_in": [
  {
   "from": "south-korea",
   "type": "destination",
   "name": "South Korea",
   "as": "The spine specialist that made Korea a named address for back surgery.",
   "rel": "part"
  },
  {
   "from": "seoul",
   "type": "hub",
   "name": "Seoul",
   "as": "The spine hospital that made Korean spinal surgery a destination in its own right.",
   "rel": "part"
  }
 ]
}