Medical Tourism in Taiwan

The Economic Miracle

Taiwan is a tear-drop shaped island with a total area of 36,000 sq km (14,400 sq mi). It is located in southeast Asia among the island chains of eastern Asia, and is bordered in the west by the Pacific Ocean. Taiwan’s northern neighbors are Japan and the Ryukyu Islands, while the Philippines are in the south. Due to the convenience of air travel and small flying distances, Taiwan is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Asia.

Over the past 50 years, Taiwan gave rise to the world famous “Economic Miracle”. Products made in Taiwan figure large on the global market, and rank in the top 14 trading countries of the world. Taiwan is also the primary nation of foreign investment from China and many southeast Asian countries.

People and Geography

Taiwan’s official jurisdiction includes the, Penghu Islands, Kinmen, Matsu, the Dongsha Islands and Nansha Islands (total area of 36,179 sq km). The total population of Taiwan, the Penghu Islands, Kinmen and Matsu is over 23,000 million as of December 2009. The population density is 625 persons per sq km. Among Taiwan‘s inhabitants, the Han people form the largest ethnic group, making up 98 percent of Taiwan’s population. The other 2 percent include the 12 indigenous tribes and other aborigine minorities.

Environment

Two thirds of Taiwan‘s island is mountain and forest while the remaining third of the island consists of foothills, highlands, plains, and basins. The Central Mountain range extends from the North to the South within the island and forms the source of Taiwan’s rivers. In the east, are the Jade Mountains These are the highest mountains in northeastern Asia. Taiwan’s climate is tropical and extremely humid all year. The annual rainfall on average is 2,500 mm. Three major features of Taiwan’s climate are warm winters, hot summers, and abundant rainfall.

Culture

Since 1949, Taiwan has worked hard to become a modern and multi-cultural society. Adopting a pioneering spirit, Taiwan has promoted inter-ethnic competition and integration as well preserving tradition. Taiwan is the focal point of Chinese traditional culture and fine arts. Besides the conservation of Chinese antiquities at the National Palace Museum, some exemplary illustrations of Taiwanese culture include:

Temples and Architecture

Taiwan traditional architecture is the repository of the folk arts. These include colorful ink painting, calligraphy, woodcarving, stone-carving, clay sculpture, ceramics, and colorful ceramic figurines. The most celebrated and ancient of Taiwan’s temples are the Lin Family Mansion and Garden in PanChiao, Longshan Temple at Lukang, Tianhou Temple, and Chau Tien Temple at Peikang.

Folk Culture and Arts

Some important festivals of Taiwan include the Lunar New Year, the Lantern Festival, the Dragon Boat Festival, Chihsi (Chinese Valentine’s Day), and the Ghost Festival. In addition to traditional Chinese opera, Taiwan has successfully developed a national interest in Taiwanese opera and puppetry.

Comparative Advantages of Medical Treatment in Taiwan

High Quality

Taiwan’s medical care system is domestically and internationally quality assured, since the Bureau of National Health Insurance (BNHI) subsidizes the hospitals according to the accreditation types. Higher accreditation types receive more medical subsides, while the public believes that higher accreditation level implies better medical service. Thus, all 87 teaching hospitals and most region hospitals in Taiwan endeavor to get the best accreditation issued by the Taiwan Joint Commission on Medical Accreditation (TJCMA) to assure the excellence of their healthcare. The accreditation system was originated in the United Sates and strictly reevaluated every three years to ensure hospitals always remain the quality status in personnel, medical devices and facilities, services as well as patient safety protection.

Affordable Cost

Taiwan’s medical institutions provides patients with excellent healthcare services at reasonable prices. By providing the latest medical techniques, the most advanced devices, and the most well-trained professionals, Taiwan healthcare providers only charge patients a basic and inexpensive price. In most cases, the surgical fees in Taiwan are only about one-fifth to one-sixth of that in the U.S. and the UK. For example, a liver transplant is about $88,000, which is about 29% of the cost of doing it in the U.S., and 50% of the cost of doing it in Singapore. The hip joint replacement fee is about $5,900, which is about 17% of what it would cost in the U.S., and 22% of what it would cost in the UK, and 59% cheaper than Singapore or Thailand.

Taiwan’s medical care provides not only disease treatment but also affordable health examination, such as physical exam, cancer screening, coronary artery health exams, and cranial nervous health exams. Physical exams include panendoscopy, colonfiberscopy, and cancer screening. The cost is only 17% of that in the U.S. The cost of a PET screen is only about half of what it costs in the U.S. and the UK.

Last but not least, Taiwan also provides a verity of healthcare treatments such as dental implants, excimer laser surgery, artificial reproduction, and other types of surgeries that meet the needs of international patients.

High Tech

Taiwan’s hospitals use state-of-the-art equipment including the volume computed tomography, MRI and PET for cancer screen, Ar-He cryoablation, and cyberknife for tumor treatment as well as the image-guided radiation for cancer therapy. This type of equipment is of the higest quality and rivals those in the U.S. According to a 2009 report done by the Taiwan Task Force on Medical Travel, there were a total of 38 PET, 156 MRI, and 331 CT in Taiwan.

On the other side, Taiwan’s hospitals can provide services to patients outside the hospitals by using WiMAX Technology, which is system utilizes mobile devices that monitor health indicators. Meanwhile, the Ubiquitous Medical System for Home Care, serves as a 24 hr secure health monitor. Medical Application of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) can enhance patient safety as a tracking device used in drug and patient identification.

Patient-Oriented Services

Taiwan is confident in providing customer heart-touching services. They offer independent facilities for preventive health care, operations totally separated from general hospital operation in order for patients to have the best services with comfort and privacy. Meanwhile, Taiwan International medical services provide online instant message response to their patients’ health examination concerns, door-to-door service from the airport, as well as one-to-one language translation services to serve patients’ needs.
During the whole procedure, the personal medical team will look after the patients. The personal nurses will lead patients that are going through the entire process, and will assist patients to finish the entire procedure. After the examination, the health manager will provide patients with the most complete health management plan that includes prompt solutions and also will assist in arranging follow-up visits.

Comprehensiveness

For the last few decades, Taiwan’s well-known Economic Miracle ranked the 19th in the world, and 15th in the world for trade. In ranking the quality of health care in advanced industrial and newly industrialized countries. Taiwan was ranked second, behind Sweden. The level of medical and economic development in Taiwan is more competitive than most developed countries.
The government also sends mobile medical teams to remote villages regularly and cooperates with the health projects with 100 bi-lateral countries. In 2002, DOH founded the International Medical Training Center in Taipei Hospital. Until now, there are 26 international medical groups that have received medical training in Taiwan.

Professional Teams

Taiwan health care provides professional medical teams to serve their patients. Taiwan is the second healthiest country in the world according to The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), which evaluates the condition of health in 27 principal countries in accordance with thirteen index of health. Besides, Taiwan has abundant medical resources: a total of 22.2 doctors and 56.3 beds per ten thousand people, and the average occupation rate is 70%.

These accomplishments are not accidental. Doctors in Taiwan must take a wide-range of strict medical education. Generally speaking, medical students must study at least seven years for the entire medical education, including four years basic medical education, two years clerk and one-year intern in their last academic year. After more than three years of professional training, the resident physicians must pass the subspecialty training. Medical students could only get the qualification of becoming an attending physician after completing their researches and paper publication. On the average, it takes 12 to 13 years for medical students to become an attending physician.

Equipped with high quality and heart touching services at affordable costs, with high tech medical equipment and medical teams that ensure hospitality, Taiwan is indeed your preferred destination of healthcare.

Six Major Medical Specialties in Taiwan

 1.) Liver Transplant

There are many remarkable achievements done by Taiwan’s hospitals in liver transplantation. In 1994, Taiwan completed the first living donor liver transplantation. Since then, Taiwan’s professional teams have endeavored to become the best in the world. In 1997, they completed the first split liver transplantation in Asia, and the first living donor liver transplantation without transfusion blood or blood products in the world. Furthermore, Taiwan performed a living donor liver transplantation with a liver graft from a pregnant mother in 2001.

2.) Cardiovascular Surgery

One of the hospitals in Taiwan performed the first cardiac cryosurgery in the world in 1998. This hospital also performed the first successful heart transplantation and artificial heart. Statistically, now Taiwan performs more than 5,000 cardiac diagnostic and treatment procedures a year, including 100 heart transplantations cases, and numerous CABG, valve replacements, cardiac catheterization, and stenting cases, etc. The success rate of coronary artery stent implantation is up to 99%.

Until 2007, more than 6,000 cases were conducted for supraventricular tachycardia treatment with 98% success rate. Taiwan also has plenty experiences in radiofrequency catheter ablation treatment for arrhythmia, coronary artery disease treatment, percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), and cardiovascular health examination.

3.) Craniofacial Reconstruction

Since one of the hospitals in Taiwan established the first craniofacial center in east-south Asia in 1978, Taiwan had accumulated more than 30,000 patients with cleft lip and palates, and achieved a 100% success rate. Taiwan’s hospitals provide a wide range of craniofacial conditions treatments that include orofacial clefts, secondary cleft deformities, aesthetic maxillofacial problems, and complex craniofacial deformities. Owing to the international recognized state-of-the-art surgery technologies, Taiwan had trained more than 50 foreign doctors to treat patients in the world.
This Center works closely with the non-profit, charitable Noordhoff Craniofacial Foundation, and undertakes at least 6 volunteer humanitarian missions of cleft surgery of neighboring countries. From 1998 to 2007, the total number of free overseas medical diagnosis cases is 1,116.

4.) Joint Replacement

Taiwan has abundant clinical experiences in joint replacement, on average 20,000 cases a year. Almost every regional and teaching hospital performs the procedure as good as the U.S. standards. Additionally, Taiwan widely uses MIS surgery, computer-aided navigation and rotation osteotomy to reduce the tissue trauma during operation and shorten the restoration time significantly. In general, patients can take care of themselves the next day after the surgery, and return to their normal life within two weeks.

5.) Artificial Reproduction

The human immature oocyte cryopreservation technology has improved in Taiwan. As of now, the success pregnancy rate is up to 37.7% and the live birth rate is 27.7%. Taiwan also provides many reproductive techniques including artificial insemination, IVF-ET, ICSI, blastocyst transfer, and preimplantation genetic diagnosis along with infertility counseling.

6.) Traditional Chinese Medicine

From preventive health examination to surgical treatment and restoration, Taiwan provides integrated and sound healthcare systems to serve every patient’s needs. Taiwan combines traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) as one of the treatment. Generally speaking, TCM includes four major treatments: Chinese herbal medicine, acupuncture, and Tui na, (A kind of massage). In Taiwan, TCM is partially covered by the National Health Insurance and under supervise by the government organization, the Committee on Chinese Medicine and Pharmacy (CCMP), Department of Health. CCMP was founded in 1995 to serve the purpose of regulating and developing Chinese Medicine in Taiwan. To attain the high standards of Chinese Medicine research, the evaluation of research protocols has been standardized according to the ISO. CCMP also takes responsibility to promote issues of Taiwan Traditional Pharmacopoeia, GMP of Chinese Medicine manufactures, set up clinical research centers for Chinese Medicine, and accredit Chinese Medicine hospitals. Many Taiwan’s leading hospitals had established their specialty in Chinese Medicine to meet the trend.

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