MOHW Hospitals Leverage Language Support and AI Tools to Enhance Health Care Accessibility

Taipei: Senior officials from hospitals under the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) on Monday highlighted interpretation services and planned AI-assisted tools aimed at making health care more accessible to patient groups including foreign nationals during a seminar in Taipei. According to Focus Taiwan, Wu Chien-hsien, a deputy superintendent at MOHW's Taipei Hospital, emphasized the importance of language support as a necessary capability for modern hospitals to achieve health care equity. During his presentation, Wu explained that Taipei Hospital had launched interpretation services on the messaging app LINE in August last year. This service allows patients who speak Indonesian, Thai, or Vietnamese to make appointments online and receive medical consultation support from interpreters. Currently, 578 foreign nationals have signed up for the service. Wu also mentioned that the hospital can arrange for interpreters to accompany foreign patients during medical visits, providing support not only in the thr ee Southeast Asian languages but also in English. The on-site interpretation service, which began three years ago, has received positive feedback from foreign patients. Wu noted that direct communication with doctors often leads to incomplete information conveyance. The implementation of these services has resulted in an increase in visits by foreign patients to the hospital, rising from 3,419 in the first three months of 2025 to 3,622 in the same period of 2026, as highlighted in Wu's presentation. Furthermore, Taipei Hospital plans to introduce an AI-powered robot at its entrance later this year to assist patients with inquiries about hospital services in their preferred language. Yang Nan-ping, superintendent of MOHW's Taoyuan General Hospital, also discussed AI innovations during the seminar. The hospital is developing an AI-assisted service to help patients register with the appropriate department. Yang explained that patients traditionally call the hospital for advice when unsure about which departmen t to visit, but front-desk staff may be too busy or unable to provide complete answers. The AI service aims to link patients' queries directly to the hospital's database for real-time responses, assisting patients in choosing the appropriate department or accessing health education information. Yang added that the service is being developed as an app in collaboration with an IT company, with plans to launch a Chinese-language version by the end of the year.