#文章首发挑战赛#
A province with a land area of 36,000 square kilometers and a population of just over 23 million has been able to gain global attention in terms of medical technology and systems. As early as 2000, the British Economist magazine released the world health rankings, and Taiwan was ranked second in the world. Major American media outlets such as Time Magazine, the New York Times, and CNN have also featured on Taiwan's medical system for a long time, and have cast envious eyes. And Taiwan's medical treatment can be so praised also has its own strength.
Not to mention, among the top 200 largest hospitals in the world, Taiwan accounts for 14, second only to the United States and Germany in the ranking, and is the third largest economy in the world and the first in Asia. And more than a dozen of these hospitals are accredited by JCI international medical and health institutions. It can be seen that at least Taiwan's medical technology is widely recognized internationally. In terms of scale, there are about 23,000 traditional Chinese and Western medical institutions and nearly 500 hospitals in Taiwan, which can fully cover the medical needs at all levels from top to bottom.
In addition, Taiwan is a world leader in many medical devices and medical technology, with all kinds of advanced MRI, computed tomography and other examination equipment, and can also use positron photography technology for cancer screening. Even in 2012, 9 hospitals in Taiwan were equipped with da Vinci surgical robots, while the mainland introduced the first one in 2006, and by the end of 2013, there were only 17 in total.
It is only after this that the medical level of the mainland has continued to develop, and as of the beginning of 2023, the number of da Vinci surgical robots installed in tertiary hospitals in the mainland has reached about 360. And in October this year, with the advent of the first localized da Vinci surgical robot created by Continental and American company Intuitive Medical, we will also have a significant breakthrough in high-tech medical equipment.
In fact, as early as the 80s of the last century, Taiwan was already one of the "Four Asian Tigers" and was recognized as a developed economy by the World Bank and the International Monetary and Economic Organization.
Therefore, it is not surprising that the medical conditions in Taiwan have always been relatively superior, of course, in addition to economic factors, more important is the improvement of the medical system.
How can Taiwan's medical system help it become a "model" of medical care in Asia?
Medical education in Taiwan is quite rigorous, and a medical student must not only spend at least 12 years of basic and specialized medical education, as well as years of clinical professional training, and complete his or her own relevant professional thesis. More importantly, Taiwan's medical education is taught in English, which is directly in line with Europe and the United States, and the training of physicians is long and of high quality, which also makes Taiwan extremely good at many medical technologies, such as joint replacement surgery, liver transplantation, cardiovascular surgery and artificial reproduction, which are all first-class in the international medical field. According to statistics, the survival rate of liver transplantation in Taiwan within 5 years is as high as 93%, which is 12% higher than that of Japan, and the United States cannot be compared.
What's even more valuable is that Taiwan not only has advanced medical technology for treating severe cases, but also relatively cheap treatment prices. Although important surgeries such as liver transplants cost nearly $100,000, they are actually less than one-third of those in the United States, while major surgeries such as hip replacement, which Taiwan Medical Technology specializes in, can be done for less than $10,000.
As for diseases that do not require surgery, especially some minor diseases with headache and brain fever, they are surprisingly cheap, and there is even a cap on medical expenses. There is no reimbursement for outpatient medicine of less than NT$100, which is about NT$23. NT$100 to NT$1,500 is a 20% reimbursement, but the upper limit is only NT$200, and more than NT$1,500 is capped, with NT$300, which means that it is less than NT$70 for a single outpatient visit.
As for hospitalization, if it is an emergency and is discharged within 30 days, the individual will bear 10%, and if it is a chronic disease within the scope of the prescribed reimbursement, the individual will only need to bear 5% if it is reduced by half, and the total amount will be capped at NT$41,000, which is less than 10,000 yuan. And these mainly rely on the domestic health insurance system implemented in Taiwan, which is generally referred to as Taiwan Health Insurance. However, it is slightly different from the mainland's medical insurance that its main sources of funding are the government and individuals, with the general government funding ratio of about 36%, the fees paid by individual groups accounting for about 34%, and the remaining enterprise burden is about 30%.
In addition, the reason why Taiwan's medical system makes people feel better is because of the more attention paid to the friendly service attitude towards patients in medical services, which is also related to the relatively small number of people in the region and the relatively large number of medical resources.