BioMed Taiwan

The Ministry of Health and Welfare yesterday announced the establishment of three artificial intelligence (AI) centers to help achieve its smart medicine (e-health) goals, adding that 16 “indicator hospitals” have been selected to test and demonstrate the technology.

The centers include the center for responsible AI execution, the center for clinical AI certification and the center for AI impact research, Minister of Health and Welfare Chiu Tai-yuan (邱泰源) said.

The centers would help solve three major challenges in e-health development — “implementation,” “evidence” and “payment” — he said, adding that the AI centers could also lead to more advanced medical services.

The launching of the centers is “an important milestone in Taiwan’s smart medical development,” Chiu said. “It also reflects the government’s goal of advancing e-health and ensuring the nation’s competitiveness in the global medical field.”

“Especially when facing the challenges of a low birthrate and an aging society, we must speed up the introduction of e-health technology to enhance long-term care policies, improve the healthcare environment, optimize medical resource allocation, and ensure the National Health Insurance’s (NHI) sustainable development,” he added.

Lee Chien-chang (李建璋), director of the ministry’s Department of Information Management, said that introducing AI products for clinical applications poses three major challenges.

Many doctors and patients do not trust AI or have personal data security concerns, while some AI products have faced challenges in obtaining certification or licensing and standards for calculating NHI payments for the use of clinical AI applications have not been set, he said.

The center for responsible AI execution would be tasked with establishing information security and privacy protection management regulations, as well as publicizing AI models, data, effectiveness and other information to improve AI application transparency, Lee said, adding that it would also routinely examine its processes to ensure reliability.

The center for clinical AI certification would work with the Food and Drug Administration to speed up the certification of AI products, he said.

The center also aims to form an alliance of hospitals and assist manufacturers in the certification of their AI products, to accelerate product development and provide Taiwanese access to better e-health products, he said.

Regarding the hundreds of AI-assisted e-health products that have already been licensed, but are not yet covered by the NHI, the center for AI impact research would work with the NHI Administration to establish clinical trial mechanisms for scientifically determining an AI products’ efficacy, which would provide data for assessing NHI coverage, Lee said.

Sixteen hospitals have passed a three-phase evaluation to become “indicator hospitals” for the three centers, including National Taiwan University Hospital, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, Tri-Service General Hospital, Taipei’s and Taichung’s Veterans General hospitals, China Medical University and Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, the ministry said.

Date: 2024-10-08
Source: The Taipei Times.