Taiwan has implemented National Health Insurance for more than 25 years since 1995, providing comprehensive healthcare for all residents living in Taiwan. It is also well known across the globe for its universal presence, convenience, economy, and high satisfaction from the general public. In order to prevent the spread of the covid-19, the National Health Insurance Administration applied NHI Medicloud system for managing the travel history of patient and the use of the smart card system as the platform for people to approach masks, completed the advanced deployment of pandemic prevention. To continue the international exchanges, the National Health Insurance Administration organized the Webinar on How the IT System of Taiwan National Health Insurance Helps Fight COVID-19 on 15 December, 2020, where Representative Michael Pei-yung Hsu of Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in the Philippines acted as moderator, and the NHIA shared the Taiwanese experience on pandemic prevention policies. From the Philippines side, Dr. Art Alcantara, Acting Chief Information Officer of the Philippines Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) were invited to share how the Philippines health insurance system was responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.
After the establishment of the Memorandum of Understanding between Taiwan and the Philippines on Cooperation in Health Insurance in 2012, the National Health Insurance Administration has dedicated toward the exchanges between the two countries in the area of national health insurance. PhilHealth visited Taiwan in 2017 to learn about Taiwan’s Global Budge systems and the diagnosis related groups (Tw-DRGs). In 2019, Dr. Po-Chang Lee, Director General of the NHIA led a delegation to Manila to hold a workshop on universal health coverage, leading to fruitful exchanges.
Director General Lee said that the NHIA follows the government’s New Southbound policy, and based on the long-established foundation of exchange and collaboration between the NHIA and PhilHealth, both sides will continue to deepen the relationship. Meanwhile, in order to share the NHIA's experiences in combating COVID-19, the NHIA held this webinar and hoped to help with Taiwan's soft power in medicine and public health during the COVID-19 pandemic.
During the pandemic, Director General Lee stated that the NHIA showed organizational resiliency, enhanced the NHI MediCloud System functions with people's travel history, occupation, contact and cluster history (TOCC). Representing Taiwan, the NHIA won the Special Award for Resiliency at the 2020 IDC DX Award with its project the MediCloud System to Combat COVID-19. Taiwan’s achievements in pandemic prevention has received international recognition, and presented a new paradigm other countries can learn from this time of the pandemic.