The ageing of the population and the increase in the proportion of patients with chronic diseases are becoming two growing challenges for countries around the world, including Taiwan. The Taiwanese government estimates that more than one-fifth of the population in Taiwan will be senior citizens aged 65 or above by 2025, according to MIC (Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute), a major government think tank and a leading IT research institute in Taiwan. For this reason, the Industrial Development Bureau (IDB) of the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MoEA) of Taiwan joins forces with a medical solution startup, called AdvMeds, to promote its Smart Health Station, which is a new all-in-one smart health solution to help build Taiwan’s largest shared community health center network by connecting with local medical institutions across Taiwan.

Illustration of the AdvMeds Smart Health Station

Source: AdvMeds, compiled by MIC, December 2021

No more handwritten personal health notes needed when you have the Smart Health Station in the neighborhood

The AdvMeds Smart Health Station measures and collects physiological data such as height, weight, heart rate, blood pressure, blood oxygen, body temperature, body fat, and bone density to meet the daily measurement needs of the elderly. Under the joint effort of the IDB and three local governments, a number of the health stations have been set up in local activity centers, supermarkets, hotels and hostels, pharmacies, long-term care institutions, and health centers for the convenience of the elderly living nearby. During the coronavirus pandemic period, the health station has become an efficient epidemic prevention solution. It helps introduce the real-name system into campuses and workplaces, managing physiological conditions of employees and visitors to enhance epidemic prevention, and, most importantly, it provides a privacy setting that lets you automatically delete your data after 28 days to protect personal information.

In addition, AdvMeds has helped resolve inconveniences associated with traditional health record systems. Traditional health stations cannot upload data online so they print out little slips of paper instead. Not only is it difficult to archive these paper slips, but keeping daily health notes is also too troublesome for the elderly. There are several login methods for the Smart Health Station, including a registered smart card, health insurance card, mobile app, and more to come. Physiological measurement data can be automatically uploaded to the mPHR Cloud. Users can then view the current data and recent trends by downloading the mPHR App, through which the elderly can access the advanced medical health management scales for senior health improvement and maintenance. With the mPHR App, the elderly no longer have to manually keep track of their physiological data. Better still, they can share the data with their close relatives.

AdvMeds improves the quality of personalized healthcare service and helped Taiwan local governments won the IDC Asia Pacific Smart City Awards in 2020

To encourage the elderly to use health measurement services more, in the early stage of the promotion, AdvMeds cooperated with local businesses to launch a bonus point exchange system to encourage people to develop good health management habits. The measured data can be presented to doctors as a reference to assist in detecting abnormalities or adjusting medications to improve the accuracy of personalized medical treatment.

The Smart Health Station has been introduced to Kaohsiung city, Pingtung county, and Penghu county, spanning 13 districts and connecting 122 community health centers and 338 medical institutions. To date, more than 1 million persons have accessed the Smart Health Station, which has improved the quality of regional health care services, especially for the elderly. The achievement of AdvMeds has been recognized internationally as the AdvMeds’ smart health care solution helped Kaohsiung City, Pingtung County, and Penghu County to be the winner of IDC Asia Pacific Smart City Award in 2020.

Taiwan's health care solution is exported to Southeast Asian countries to enhance their chronic disease care capabilities

The proportion of patients with chronic diseases in Southeast Asian countries is rising sharply due to changes in dietary habits but the diagnosis rate is relatively low because of incomplete medical infrastructure resources. For this reason, the ASEAN governments have gradually increased their health care budgets in recent years to promote national health with preferential policies. To address their needs, Taiwan hopes to share the experience in the development of smart health application services to contribute to the improvement of the health of people living in Southeast Asia.

For example, AdvMeds Smart Health Station has been introduced to a hypertension management program funded by the Thai government and implemented by Chulalongkorn University and 100 hospitals in Thailand. It helps improve the government and hospitals' ability to track people's health; in Malaysia, the Smart Health Station can cooperate with local insurance companies to be in line with the local insurance policies to help the public develop good health management habits.

The Smart City Taiwan Project has long been co-working with Taiwan’s local governments to take the advantages of the country’s high-tech industries. Together, the project has assisted many companies in obtaining local field trial opportunities, jointly developing innovative applications, and solving local problems, especially in the six major areas related to people’s livelihood such as healthcare, governance/safety, tourism/retail, agriculture, education, and transportation.

While Taiwan keeps innovating, we would like to share our digital transformation experience with the world. "Taiwan Can Help!" is the slogan to demonstrate our ambition to help the world transform into smart cities. At present, about 300 Taiwanese companies have involved in the Smart City Taiwan Project, delivering more than 220 smart services in 22 counties and cities across Taiwan to more than 8.54 million Taiwanese people.

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