National Taiwan University Hospital President Ming-Shiang Wu stated on the 25th that future medical developments will involve "P4 Medicine," including prediction, prevention, personalization, and patient participation. Empowering health with artificial intelligence (AI) will bring new changes in various aspects. Taiwan should strengthen four key infrastructures: AI local talent, technology, data, and regulations. Simultaneously, overcoming challenges in the healthcare system through digital transformation is essential.
The Taiwan Listed Companies Association held the "Eastern Leaders' Lecture" yesterday, inviting Ming-Shiang Wu to deliver a speech on "Challenges and Opportunities in Healthcare in the Post-Pandemic Era." Ming-Shiang Wu pointed out that AI had already impacted the global healthcare system before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, with the occurrence of the pandemic, both black swan and gray rhino risks emerged in society, and the healthcare system must solve problems through flexibility and resilience.
Ming-Shiang Wu explained that population aging has led to a shift in economic behavior, business opportunities, and political decision-making, becoming the dominant trend in human future development. Currently, Taiwan's population structure is trending towards aging and decreasing birth rates, leading to increasing demand for geriatric medicine. Taiwan has rapidly increased its elderly population to a quarter of the national population in just ten years, aging faster than Japan. In another 40 years, the working-age population will be less than 50% of the national population.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has proposed that due to global population aging and lifestyle changes, cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and chronic respiratory diseases have become the four major diseases causing deaths besides infectious diseases. However, these four major diseases are preventable. He believes that the current problem with the global healthcare system is that it only considers diseases and does not address sub-health and health promotion issues. Moreover, healthcare systems face challenges such as high costs, unequal access to medical care, inconsistent medical quality, and the burden of massive aging healthcare needs. Digital transformation in healthcare can help solve these challenges.
The purpose of healthcare digital transformation is to assist and empower healthcare personnel. Through AI, the healthcare system can become more transparent and eliminate discrimination based on race, gender, education, and income, making medical resources more equally accessible to all. Furthermore, healthcare digital transformation can drive medical services to be more extensive, allowing medical breakthroughs to transcend time and space, and treating patients more accurately and warmly.
He believes that the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases have shifted from therapeutic medicine to preventive medicine. Former "game changers" in medicine include antibiotics, insulin, X-rays, vaccines, and anticoagulants, which have now transitioned to the COVID-19 pandemic, digital technology income, the Internet of Things, and AI. Among them, AI can not only improve the safety of the medical environment but also enhance the long-term physical management of chronic patients and reduce the dependence of the elderly on caregivers.
In this major trend environment, Taiwan has an excellent healthcare system and digital competitiveness, which can create a strong force in healthcare digitization. National Taiwan University Hospital has developed various aspects of smart healthcare, providing the most comprehensive health prevention for the people in the new future.
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