The Ministry of Health and Welfare yesterday announced that it would launch an online medical information platform, saying that its short-term goal is facilitating the sharing of healthcare data between medical centers, so that patients would not need to request copies of their files.
The Department of Information Management said one of the greatest challenges of smart healthcare development in Taiwan is the fragmentation of healthcare data, as hospitals have developed their own electronic medical record systems.
Although Taiwan has an advanced healthcare system and a strong information industry, healthcare information cannot be shared between hospitals due to the lack of a standardized data format, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Lue Jen-der (呂建德) said.
Photo: Lin Hui-chin, Taipei Times
The launch of Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR), a standardized electronic healthcare data storage system, would allow smooth exchanges of data between hospitals, Lue said.
Department of Information Management Director Lee Chien-chang (李建璋) said the three core focuses of the new platform are: “data unification,” “rules unification” and “application unification.”
The first goal of data unification is to have a nationwide unified format for electronic medical records, Lee said.
Different countries have different FHIR implementation standards, he said, adding that there are 23 countries that have established their FHIR implementation guidelines.
The ministry hopes to initially allow at least the 109 most common items in medical records, such as gender, age, height, and chronic conditions and medications, to be exchanged between 23 medical centers in the next two years.
The ministry would introduce a clinical quality language (CQL), a standardized and domain-specific programming language, as well as a rule library to achieve rule unification, he said.
Through the CQL, hospitals would be able to automatically check if their diagnoses and prescriptions meet the required standards, which would improve service efficiency, he said.
The ministry would also set up an artificial intelligence (AI) medical application ecosystem similar to Apple and Google’s app stores to achieve application unification, so that hospitals can freely download and apply AI technology to improve their clinical decisionmaking efficiency, he added.
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS