Artificial intelligence key to cutting healthcare costs in Taiwan

Leveraging the emerging powers of artificial intelligence (AI), Taiwan’s medical device companies are developing smaller, more portable medical devices to provide better, more accessible care to the elderly – in a country where hospitals are in short supply.

The devices in development are designed to use big data analytics and the “Internet of Things” (IoT) to monitor the well-being of patients and provide continuous, comprehensive healthcare to patients, particularly those in rural areas removed from hospitals and medical clinics. The technologies increasingly in use in Taiwan have also improved the early detection of diseases.

The hospital shortage is getting more severe, even as healthcare needs for Taiwan’s aging population grow. The total number of hospitals in Taiwan dropped from 750 in 1997 to 490 in 2016, as small private hospitals closed, beset by rising operational costs, according to a market overview released last year by Price Waterhouse Cooper Taiwan.