The National Health Insurance Administration announced that beginning May 19, the duration of Taiwan’s COVID-19 Level 3 alert has been extended and that rules on telemedicine have been eased to ensure uninterrupted access to health care for patients. However, the reality is that barely 48 hours have passed between the deregulation of telemedicine on May 17 and the extension of the COVID0-19 alert, leading to many complaints from patients about the hastily implemented policy.

Among them, the most notable issue is that despite the deployment of telemedicine, patients are still required to visit hospitals to pick up drug prescriptions in person. Despite precautions taken by hospitals such as setting up separate outdoor areas for telemedicine patients to pickup their prescriptions, the risk of infection remains. As a result of these shortcomings, patients have not been well served by Taiwan’s half-baked implementation of telemedicine.

New Power Party Legislator Claire Wang recommended that health care providers mail drug prescriptions to patients’ homes to allow them to pick up the drugs at nearby pharmacies. Pharmacists have also recommended that the drug prescriptions be sent digitally to facilitate pickups at pharmacies.

Apart from limitations with picking up drug prescriptions, hospitals have adopted a wide variety of home made and existing apps to operate telemedicine, leading to confusion and inconvenience for patients.

Taiwan’s telemedicine still lacks a single solution that is integrated and standardized. While many hospitals use LINE, the popular chat app was not designed for medical purposes and is unable to meet the demands of doctor-patient communications.

Furthermore, the reliance on LINE could lead to national security and cybersecurity concerns as the app is developed by a Korean company who stores the app’s data located in its home country. If the government is committed to telemedicine, it must develop a domestic telemedicine solution as soon as possible.

Dr. Yang Tseng-lung, who leads an innovation center at the Kaohsiung Veterans General Hospital, said that ideally, telemedicine should cover everything from the making of appointments to notifications and registration, all in a one stop shop mobile app. The objective of telemedicine must also allow entirely remote access to health care for the technology to be widely adopted by patients in everyday life.

It is hoped that through the pandemic, Taiwan will be able to make its transition towards telemedicine, which will allow medical centers to see reduced loading, help cut down on wastage of medical resources, as well as improving the provision of health care to patients.

[2021-6-17/Global Views Health]