As the world confronts challenges of aging populations and healthcare workforce shortages, smart healthcare is no longer optional — it’s essential. And Taiwan is a proven expert.
A nationwide digital health infrastructure delivering visible, transformative results. 13 Taiwanese hospitals among Newsweek’s 2026 World’s Best Smart Hospitals, ranking second in Asia. More than 50 artificial intelligence-driven medical products detecting cancer, predicting cardiac events, and boosting patient care are approved for clinical use. Nineteen national medical AI centers ensure that AI use is safe and reliable from development to application.
Taiwan has built one of the most advanced healthcare systems on the planet.
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And the case for its full inclusion in the World Health Organization (WHO) is not just about fairness. It’s a matter of global health security, patient well-being, health crisis and pandemic preparedness. It’s about leaving a critical gap in worldwide healthcare systems and innovation by leaving out Taiwan.
The “Healthy Taiwan” strategy has paved the way in digital healthcare, integrating data, artificial intelligence (AI), and cloud technologies to improve healthcare quality and efficiency while focusing on holistic, patient-centered care.
Following this model, Taiwan recently introduced a national digital health platform called the “3-3-3 Framework,” which integrates three major health spaces, three key data standards, and three national AI governance centers. Its foundations are built on Taiwan’s robust ICT industry and National Health Insurance (NHI) system — one of the world’s most comprehensive repositories of high-quality data.
Under this infrastructure, Taiwan is syncing electronic medical records across more than 400 hospitals and adopting international standards, including Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR), to ensure cross-institutional interoperability. The system is well-secured by a “Zero Trust” cybersecurity framework that protects patients and their data.
These policies have already produced tangible results that improve treatment and efficiency.
AI-based risk prediction is helping physicians deliver personalized care in chronic disease management, facilitating a shift from reactive treatment to proactive health management. The digital “MediCloud” system is enhancing the visualization of examination results and utilizing AI-assisted medical imaging interpretation. Taiwan has even digitized cancer treatment, accelerating the review process for catastrophic illness diagnoses and their necessary treatment. The outcomes are boosted healthcare quality, patient safety, and lives saved.
Personal health management has also improved. Taiwan’s online health bank platform integrates wearable device data to put health management directly in patients’ hands. It encourages individuals to take a more active role in managing their health, already surpassing a 50% adoption rate. Other digital services, including virtual health insurance cards, e-prescriptions, and telemedicine services help to overcome temporal and geographical barriers, expanding access to rural and home-based care.
Taiwan has established a smart healthcare ecosystem driven by data, enabled by AI, and supported by interoperable standards, extending medical services from hospitals into communities and daily life. Taiwan’s practical experience demonstrates that we are capable of contributing to the international community.
And yet, Taiwan remains excluded from full participation in the World Health Organization (WHO).
But neither the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758 nor World Health Assembly Resolution 25.1 references Taiwan nor formally excludes it from WHO participation. The exclusion is a policy choice — a choice that weakens the global health system Taiwan is ready to strengthen.
Taiwan has demonstrated its commitment to the international community by advancing cross-border AI models without transferring sensitive data and collaborating with partners in Southeast Asia to establish trusted international data-sharing frameworks. But it seeks to do more.
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Global health requires comprehensive collaboration because diseases don’t know borders.
We sincerely urge the WHO and relevant stakeholders to support Taiwan’s inclusion in the global health system. Doing so would advance the WHO Constitution’s vision of health as a fundamental human right and uphold the UN Sustainable Development Goals’s commitment to leave no one behind. Taiwan is not asking merely to observe global health governance — it is ready to help lead it.
Dr. Chung-Liang Shih is the Minister of Health and Welfare of Taiwan.