Digital Health Taiwan: Fostering the best ecosystem

Taiwan occupies a unique position in the Asia-Pacific region. As a middle-income society, it is a suitable environment for incubating novel digitalization concepts. The market size is ideal for a first launch in Asia, the population well versed in technology, internet access is considered a human right, and open data governance is one of the many expressions of local policies promoting transparency, accountability, and value creation. In addition, there is consistent and continuous government support for digitization and digitalization through funding, new policy making, or crossagency collaboration.

The island is particularly well positioned to lead the region in breakthrough, patient-centric, and evidence-based digital health solutions. For the past two decades, Taiwan has maintained very high satisfaction rates for its National Health Insurance program. The local regulatory agency, the Taiwan Food and Drug Administration (TFDA), is a trusted industry partner and the information and communications technology (ICT) industry, one of the largest in the world, is quickly expanding into digital health innovation. Nonetheless, so far Taiwan has not been able to build a true competitive advantage and differentiate itself from regional and international players. Local digital health innovators are looking with envy to Singapore and South Korea, while Venture Capital and large multinational partnerships and investments into digital health remain slow to come.

This white paper discusses missing links in existing structures and efforts that would be required to propel the digital health industry in Taiwan. Most importantly, recommendations based on initiatives taken in leading digital health markets such as the US, Germany, France, and the UK are presented as approaches worthy of consideration for accelerating digital health transformation.

The points below summarize the article’s key recommendations

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