Taiwan Standardizes Medical Information: FHIR Adoption Aims to Ease Medical Record Exchange

Details

This initiative, led by the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW), aims to solve the problem of 'inter-hospital data incompatibility' despite the widespread use of electronic medical records in Taiwan. The platform is built on three core pillars: 'Data Standardization,' 'Rule Standardization,' and 'Application Standardization,' with a goal of implementation within two years. Technically, the international standard FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) will be fully adopted to unify the format of electronic medical records in Taiwan, aligning it with global standards. Additionally, CQL technology will be introduced to standardize rules for National Health Insurance reporting and medical quality assessment. The application layer aims to build an 'AI Medical Application Ecosystem,' utilizing the SMART on FHIR standard to ensure that various AI tools can integrate seamlessly into the medical system. The initial goal is to facilitate the exchange of 109 basic data fields (such as gender, age) across all major medical centers in Taiwan, ultimately aiming for a system where patients can carry their records anywhere nationwide.