To improve healthcare quality, the National Health Insurance Administration (NHIA) has been taking initiatives in planning digital transformation and promoting ESG and sustainable development. Since the start of 2025, the NHIA has been promoting the adoption of e-prescriptions and Changhua Christian Hospital (CCH) has been working closely with the NHIA Central Division Office to carry out and successfully completed the e-prescription pilot program in September. On October 28, the NHIA and CCH jointly held a sharing session on the pilot program, marking a new milestone in the digital transformation of healthcare services.
To make healthcare services more convenient for the public, the NHIA has introduced e-prescriptions to replace traditional paper ones. In this way, people can present their prescriptions on their phones as a QR code via the NHI App or the hospitals’ Apps for the pharmacists to scan and quickly complete the dispensing process. In the past, patients had to carefully keep their paper prescriptions for chronic illnesses, which require the patient to re-register for a new visit to the hospital if they were damaged or lost, adding unnecessary travel time and expenses. Nowadays, with just a few taps to open the e-prescriptions on the phone, patients can easily pick up their medicines at the pharmacy, making the process highly convenient and efficient.
The NHIA stated that promoting e-prescriptions reduces the use of printing papers, which is energy saving and matches the spirit of ESG and sustainable development. Moreover, the real-time-uploading of the e-prescriptions reduces the workload in pharmacies where all information would have to be manually typed-in and avoids duplicate therapy to ensure medication safety for the patients. In addition, when conducting telemedicine or home care visits, doctors can prescribe an e-prescription on-site and send it to collaborating pharmacies, so the patients’ families can pick up the prescriptions at the pharmacy with their phones. The digitalized process makes medical visits more convenient and time-saving.
The NHIA specified that CCH is the first hospital on the west coast to complete the e-prescription pilot program with two collaborating pharmacies, namely, Tiander Pharmacy (Dacun Township) and Chia-Ho Pharmacy (Lukang Township). At the same time, various hospitals in central Taiwan have started to establish relevant systems for the adoption of e-prescriptions. It is expected to attract more hospitals and pharmacies to partake the initiative in the future. The NHIA shall continue to optimize system functions to further upgrade healthcare services and fulfill the vision of a Healthy Taiwan.