BioMed Taiwan

Taiwan has claimed second place, second only to Singapore, across the Asia Pacific in the Personalized Healthcare Index (PHC index) released by the Economist at an international forum in Singapore Thursday (Jan. 28).

The index, the first of its kind, explores how eleven nations fare in realizing long-term sustainable and personalized healthcare systems. The assessment involved a 15-member expert panel and was conducted by the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies, reported CNA.

The index examines 27 indices from four areas, which are health information, health services, personalized technologies, and policy context. The objective of the rankings is to offer an insight into the quality, legal support, and efficacy of the development of precision medicine.

It finds that Taiwan has the most genetic counselors, providing patients with informed choices about genetic testing. Taiwan also comes top in the patient outcome data registry.

Gau Churn-shiouh (高純琇), a professor at National Taiwan University’s School of Pharmacy, attributed Taiwan’s outstanding performance to the availability of National Health Insurance and cancer databases as well as an incorporated information platform for clinical trials accumulated over the decades.

However, the survey also points out the weakness of Taiwan’s personalized healthcare, which is the time needed for relevant medicines to obtain approval. Gau said there is room for improvement for Taiwan to expedite the process for medications to receive a green light.

Other Asia Pacific countries involved in the research include Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, India, Indonesia, New Zealand, Australia, and China.

Date: 2021-01-31
Source: Taiwan News