The government yesterday said it was looking to further integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into its healthcare system as part of modernization efforts while facing the challenges of a “super-aged society” and a rise in chronic diseases.
Speaking at a meeting of the healthcare advisory body under the Presidential Office, President William Lai (賴清德) described AI as a game-changing tool that is crucial to government efforts to transform the healthcare system from a disease-centered model to one focused on prevention and health promotion.
Through AI and other technologies, “we can build a smart healthcare system” that responds more swiftly to the needs of different age groups, Lai said.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
While Taiwan is approaching a super-aged society, in which people aged 65 or older make up more than 20 percent of the population, the nation is also facing the growing risks of chronic diseases and other health challenges brought on by extreme weather events, he said.
Minister of Health and Welfare Shih Chung-liang (石崇良) said that AI is increasingly being applied across different areas of healthcare, including in the monitoring of communicable diseases, disease screening and diagnosis, diet management, and hospice care.
Shih in his report to the advisory body said that medical centers were also developing their own AI tools to streamline operations and deliver better services.
The pressing issue for the Ministry of Health and Welfare is to ensure that AI tools are used in accordance with legal and ethical standards, he said.
The ministry has developed AI guidelines aimed at ensuring autonomy, accountability, privacy, transparency, security, fairness and sustainability, but they have yet to be implemented in medical facilities in Taiwan, Shih said.
The ministry is also seeking to use AI to combine all medical data and databases in Taiwan into a unified, standardized system to address issues of data incompatibility and align the system with international standards, he said.
The security of medical digital infrastructure must be improved, he said, adding that a group of 387 hospitals that monitor and share information about cyberattacks was continuing to expand.
“The priority is to build up national-level cybersecurity defenses” to protect healthcare information, Shih added.
In a presentation on biotechnology, Food and Drug Administration Director-General Chiang Chih-kang (姜至剛) said that Taiwan’s biomedical industry would face a transition with the implementation of the “five strategies,” reducing the time it takes to introduce new drugs and “smart” materials to the market and normalizing their use.
The strategies — policy support, legal regulation, prioritizing technology implementation, expanding markets and increasing investment — have seen tangible successes, Chiang said.
The Executive Yuan has included biomedicine in the national “project of hope,” which would broaden its use in precision and smart medicine.
The Bio Taiwan Committee has proposed 18 measures for incorporating biomedicine, such as through AI and semiconductors, as well as improving supply chains and fostering talent, he said.
Regulation changes have decreased drug review times from 12 to eight months, Chiang said.
The agency has also reduced review times for specific projects from six to four months, he added.
The amount of time to introduce new drugs to the market is not just a number — it represents the rate at which people could receive better care, he said.
The National Infectious Diseases Bank was also included in the World Federation for Culture Collections last year, and a new building, which would be completed next year, would provide Taiwan with better capabilities to collect and preserve culture samples, as well as foster international collaboration, he said.
Additional reporting by Chiu Chih-jou
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
RSS