The Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) officially announced the launch of the "Taiwan Medical Information Standards Platform" on the 12th, accelerating the promotion of smart healthcare and the standardization of medical data to foster cross-hospital collaboration. Chien-Chang Lee, Director-General of the MOHW’s Information Department, stated that within two years, data will be unified in the cloud, integrating medical records from 23 medical centers nationwide. In the future, patients will no longer need to carry medical records when seeking treatment across different hospitals.
Jen-Der Lue, Deputy Minister of the MOHW, emphasized that Taiwan's medical and AI sectors are "both strong," and the medical information platform represents the result of a "strong partnership." With advancements in digital healthcare technology, the standardization of medical information has become a key driver for innovation in healthcare and AI development. However, without a unified data platform, exchanging information between medical institutions would face significant challenges.
To address this issue, the "Medical Information Standards Platform" will create a comprehensive medical data ecosystem by unifying "data," "rules," and "applications" to ensure smooth data exchange.
Chien-Chang Lee pointed out that one of Taiwan’s biggest challenges in the development of smart healthcare is the fragmentation of medical data. To solve this problem, the MOHW's top priority is to establish a unified national electronic health record (EHR) standard, ensuring that medical institutions can seamlessly integrate data and accelerate the implementation of smart healthcare.
The first step is to standardize medical records. The MOHW will fully adopt the international medical data standard, FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources), to unify Taiwan's electronic health record formats, allowing for smooth data exchange across institutions. FHIR has become the global standard for healthcare institutions, specifically designed to address interoperability issues between different medical organizations.
Next, in the health insurance sector, the MOHW will introduce CQL (Clinical Quality Language) technology to establish a "Rule Library" for the unified declaration of health insurance claims, medical quality assessments, and clinical guidelines. Through CQL, medical institutions will automatically check whether diagnoses and prescriptions comply with standards, ensuring standardized medical decisions, reducing errors, and improving administrative and healthcare efficiency, as well as patient care. This technology will provide intelligent clinical decision support (CDSS), standardize reimbursement criteria, and ensure that treatments align with the latest evidence-based medicine, further implementing health insurance regulations and optimizing healthcare services.
Finally, regarding applications, the MOHW will create an "AI Healthcare Application Ecosystem," akin to Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store, offering a marketplace for AI healthcare applications. This will allow medical institutions to freely download and apply AI technology to improve clinical decision-making and healthcare efficiency. To ensure seamless integration of different AI applications into healthcare systems, the SMART on FHIR standard will be introduced to unify development specifications and standardize the AI healthcare application environment.
Chien-Chang Lee emphasized that the standardization of electronic health records is not only the foundation of Taiwan's smart healthcare development but also a global trend in the healthcare industry. By adopting international medical data standards, AI data conversion technologies, and establishing a Rule Library and an AI healthcare application marketplace, Taiwan will further advance smart healthcare and cross-national collaboration, setting a benchmark for global medical data integration.
Resource: 電子病歷「最後一哩路」！2年內23家醫學中心跨院就診免再申請病歷
