As Taiwan’s healthcare system strains under doctor shortages and long wait times, medical leaders see the future of smart devices not in hospitals, but in daily life—bringing proactive health management into every home.
Left to Right: Tucheng Hospital Deputy President Ming-chin Yu, Landseed International Hospital Honorary President Ching-ping Wu, Taipei Veterans General Hospital Deputy President Wui-chiang Lee, Taichung Veterans General Hospital Honorary President Chen Shih-an.
Many Taiwanese electronics manufacturers are diversifying into smart medical device design and production to support healthcare providers. Yet, interviews conducted by the Institute for Biotechnology and Medicine Industry (IBMI) with four hospital leaders revealed an unexpected insight: the real market potential for smart medical devices lies not only in hospitals, but in the everyday lives of ordinary people.
“Foxconn’s robot can certainly play a role in hospitals, but its real impact will be felt even more outside of the hospitals,” said Ming-chin Yu, Deputy President of Tucheng Hospital. Yu, who has personally used AI-assisted diagnostics to process massive datasets on liver cancer, has a strong appreciation for the accessibility and potential of smart medical devices. “I believe everyday people want devices that pack more functions into the same compact size,” he added.
Yu illustrated this vision with the “Co-Doctor” device. Beyond monitoring vital signs such as body temperature, he said, the system could eventually detect cardiac murmurs, arrhythmias, or even lung inflammation by analyzing abnormal breathing sounds.
Such comprehensive health monitoring and automatic alerts, Yu explained, would give citizens an initial understanding of their conditions before they even step into a hospital, enabling earlier intervention and better-informed consultations with doctors.
Ching-ping Wu, Honorary President of Landseed International Hospital, shared a similar observation. “There are too many obstacles in getting patients from their homes to see doctors at the hospital,” he said. In the case of sleep medicine, traditional diagnostics can be especially slow—patients often wait up to 1.5 years for an examination. “Even at Landseed, the wait is at least two months,” Wu noted. He stressed that smart devices could act as a “snoring measurement” tool, providing simple risk categorization to help individuals better understand their sleep health.
Wu, a somnology expert trained in the United States, noted that 86% of people of Chinese ethnicity snore, though most are unaware that it is both a symptom and a disorder requiring treatment. He explained that monitoring tools—such as those developed by Wistron Meditech—can give individuals a clearer picture of their condition.
“By integrating data collected during the day and night, we can build a digital medical Internet of Things to support patients with sub-optimal health better,” Wu said.
Smart Medical Device to Increase Health Awareness
Dr. Wui-chiang Lee, Deputy President of Taipei Veterans General Hospital, shared a similar perspective. He emphasized that hospitals already possess advanced, high-precision medical equipment, meaning the real “blue ocean” for smart medical devices lies outside hospital walls. “They should be designed like the Apple Watch—simple and accessible,” Lee explained. He noted that the true target users are not patients or healthy individuals, but those in sub-optimal health. By enabling daily monitoring and preliminary screening, such devices could identify those in urgent need of further examination, easing the burden on medical providers and reducing long hospital wait times.
“I believe many smart devices in the future will function this way—as an alert, a reminder that tells you when it’s time to see a doctor,” said Dr. Wui-chiang Lee. He added candidly, “We must be mentally prepared for an era of severe shortages in doctors and nurses.”
In such a time, the core value of smart medical devices—their ability to perform preliminary analysis of key health data—will become even more critical, ensuring that patients in greatest need of care are prioritized. Lee emphasized that positioning smart medical devices as the first line of defense in health management, rather than simply a tool within diagnosis and treatment, not only makes them more meaningful but also helps raise public awareness of personal health.
Taiwan’s Natural Advantage in Developing Smart Medical Devices
Chen Shih-an, Honorary President of Taichung Veterans General Hospital (VGH), analyzed the trend from an industry development perspective, noting that Taiwan holds a unique competitive edge in the field of smart medical devices. Taking Taichung VGH as an example, he explained that compared with the high costs and long cycles in Europe and the U.S., Taiwanese hospitals are able to provide high-quality, efficient clinical trial services.
“This capability of integrating both hardware and software is precisely the core competitiveness of Taiwan’s technology industry as it transitions into the medical field,” Chen said.
In addition, all four medical experts consistently emphasized one key point: the development of smart medical devices is not about replacing doctors, but about giving them more comprehensive and timely support, while ensuring that high-quality medical services reach those who need them most.
From their perspectives, a clear trajectory emerges: smart medical devices have evolved from in-hospital diagnostic aids into core tools for family health management—shifting from passive disease treatment to proactive health maintenance.
This reflects not only the strength of Taiwan’s major electronics manufacturers, but also a fundamental transformation in medical philosophy toward “treating disease before it happens.”
As Ming-chin Yu observed: “AI can indeed ease some of our workload, even in research. The mentally exhausting tasks of the past can now be left to AI, as long as I can guide it towards the right direction.”
As Taiwan’s healthcare resources face mounting challenges, smart medical devices may hold the key to solutions. By harnessing the power of technology, medical capacity can be extended to every corner where care is needed. This quiet revolution—moving healthcare from hospitals into households—is already underway in Taiwan.
（Producer: Sophie Y. Wu／Writer: Chiyuan Chou／Adapted by Judy Lin／Editor: Lihua Wang)
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