Taiwan’s “innovative” integration of electronic health records with immigration data enabled its targeted response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the International Hospital Federation (IHF) said in a report released this month.
An IHF Beyond COVID-19 Task Force report, published on Thursday last week, offered insights into how hospitals can embrace new ways of delivering healthcare while responding to the evolving pandemic, and Taiwan’s response was highlighted to show the importance of sharing information and access.
The National Health Insurance Administration’s (NHIA) strategy to share information through MediCloud — which provides healthcare providers and patients with real-time access to health records — to control the pandemic was a key factor in the nation’s success in capping COVID-19 outbreaks and deaths, the report said.
“Although the system was not initially designed to stop a pandemic, it was nimble enough to be reoriented toward one,” the report said.
To help the system identify potential cases, the NHIA created COVID-19 risk indicators in the MediCloud system related to travel footprints, occupation, contacts and clusters, it said.
By linking MediCloud with border entry and exit data uploaded from the National Immigration Agency, the administration created a centralized, real-time alert system for potential COVID-19 cases, the report said.
“These automatic system alerts allow healthcare providers to obtain patients’ travel history, high-risk occupation, contact history and clustering at mass gatherings in real-time, enabling a more efficient triage and accurate diagnosis of COVID-19,” the report said. “This enhancement to the MediCloud system has been vital to Taiwan’s precision testing strategy, which is efficient in testing a small, but critical number of people, instead of mass testing.”
NHIA Director-General Lee Po-chang (李伯璋) said that he welcomed the recognition of Taiwan’s strategy as an honor for all healthcare workers in the nation.
The Geneva, Switzerland-based IHF established the task force to help hospitals adopt effective practices and strategies developed during the pandemic, the report said.
The pandemic has accelerated healthcare innovation at an unprecedented pace, toward more effective and agile models of care — a transformation needed in many systems worldwide, the IHF said.
UKRAINE, NVIDIA: The US leader said the subject of Russia’s war had come up ‘very strongly,’ while Jenson Huang was hoping that the conversation was good Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and US President Donald Trump had differing takes following their meeting in Busan, South Korea, yesterday. Xi said that the two sides should complete follow-up work as soon as possible to deliver tangible results that would provide “peace of mind” to China, the US and the rest of the world, while Trump hailed the “great success” of the talks. The two discussed trade, including a deal to reduce tariffs slapped on China for its role in the fentanyl trade, as well as cooperation in ending the war in Ukraine, among other issues, but they did not mention
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi yesterday lavished US President Donald Trump with praise and vows of a “golden age” of ties on his visit to Tokyo, before inking a deal with Washington aimed at securing critical minerals. Takaichi — Japan’s first female prime minister — pulled out all the stops for Trump in her opening test on the international stage and even announced that she would nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize, the White House said. Trump has become increasingly focused on the Nobel since his return to power in January and claims to have ended several conflicts around the world,
REASSURANCE: The US said Taiwan’s interests would not be harmed during the talk and that it remains steadfast in its support for the nation, the foreign minister said US President Donald Trump on Friday said he would bring up Taiwan with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) during a meeting on the sidelines of the APEC Summit in South Korea this week. “I will be talking about Taiwan [with Xi],” Trump told reporters before he departed for his trip to Asia, adding that he had “a lot of respect for Taiwan.” “We have a lot to talk about with President Xi, and he has a lot to talk about with us. I think we’ll have a good meeting,” Trump said. Taiwan has long been a contentious issue between the US and China.
Taiwan’s first African swine fever (ASF) case has been confirmed and would soon be reported to the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH), Minister of Agriculture Chen Junne-jih (陳駿季) yesterday. The Ministry of Agriculture’s Veterinary Research Institute yesterday completed the analysis of samples collected on Tuesday from dead pigs at a hog farm in Taichung and found they were ASF-positive. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency Animal Quarantine Division chief Lin Nien-nung (林念農) said the result would be reported to the WOAH and Taiwan’s major trade partners would also be notified, adding that pork exports would be suspended. As of Friday, all samples
RSS