Taipei: Taiwan's government announced plans to integrate artificial intelligence into its health care system to modernize and address challenges posed by an aging population and rising chronic diseases. President Lai Ching-te emphasized AI's transformative potential in shifting Taiwan's health care model from disease-centered to prevention and health promotion during a health care advisory meeting.
According to Focus Taiwan, Minister of Health and Welfare Shih Chung-liang outlined AI's growing applications in health care, from disease monitoring to diet management and hospice care. Medical centers are actively developing AI tools to improve operations and services. A key challenge for the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) is ensuring AI compliance with legal and ethical standards.
Shih highlighted the development of AI guidelines by the MOHW, focusing on autonomy, accountability, privacy, transparency, security, fairness, and sustainability. However, implementation across Taiwan's medical facilities remains pending. The MOHW aims to unify medical data into a standardized system to resolve data incompatibility and meet international standards.
Further, Shih stressed the necessity of enhancing cybersecurity for medical digital infrastructure, with a network of 387 hospitals expanding to monitor and share cyberattack information. "The priority is to build up national-level cybersecurity defenses" to safeguard health care information, he stated.