A world-class IT industry, an excellent health insurance system and high quality healthcare services have laid a solid foundation for the development of smart healthcare in Taiwan. However, the IT and the healthcare industries have very different thinking, approaches and priorities.  Whether they can understand each other perfectly will be the key to the success of the development and the implementation of smart healthcare.   Many international IT giants, for example Google, failed in their attempts to break into the healthcare industry.  The fundamental problem is the inefficient and ineffective communication and coordination.

The Joint Commission of Taiwan (JCT), an agency in charge of hospital accreditation and the promotion of patient safety and health education, has created a platform for supporting smart healthcare innovations in Taiwan.  The platform, named “Health Smart Taiwan (HST)”, provides healthcare institutes with the information on IT integration and helps IT companies to better understand the actual operations and practices in the healthcare sector.  The ultimate goal is to facilitate the communication between the IT and the healthcare industries so as to enhance the application of smart healthcare solutions.

So far, the HST has collected over 150 smart healthcare solutions and successfully facilitated 40 implementations.  Most of the solutions are from the NHQA award winners.  The NHQA plays an important role in establishing the standards of healthcare quality and in creating an environment for positive competition, as well as in encouraging healthcare providers to put smart healthcare innovations into use.  The NHQA award and the HST platform jointly accelerate the learning process. 

Smart healthcare is advancing at full speed now due to the changes in the society (an ageing population, low birth rate, the lack of carers, etc.) and the maturity of IT services (ICT, 5G, big data, cloud computing, etc.).  The pandemic also further spurs the development. 

Health professionals expect smart healthcare to help reduce their workload, improve the efficiency of resources and address the issues concerning healthcare quality and patients experiences.  However, the core of healthcare is humanity.   It is difficulty to replace human touch with AI.   Yet, the HST platform will continue bridging the gap between the IT and the healthcare industries so as to bring out more and more smart healthcare solutions. 

【2021-12-02 / Economic Daily】