Mountain Notes: Taiwan's electronic health records

Thursday October 28, 2021; 9:44 PM EDT

It's difficult to describe to friends and family in the USA how utterly broken the medical system is there. For many, who have decent insurance, there is little appreciation for how much better, fairer, and cheaper it could all be. Until you have experienced the Taiwan medical system, you realize that the US has not a system but rather a hodgepodge of medical markets, broken ones at that. I can and will expound on this topic some other day.#
But for now, my motivation for writing this brief entry is to express a bit of delight for today's latest "hack" (and to give some praise to the National Health Insurance administration). Consider this bit of XML:#

That's the opening bits to my comprehensive health records detailing office visits, prescriptions filled at pharmacies, test results, etc. Every interaction with doctors, clinics, hospitals over the years is recorded and available to me and my doctors. The data is available in a variety of formats for human and computer consumption, and I can download it on demand by logging into my account on the NHI website.#
Logging into the website is not a mere matter of username and password. Taiwan has put in place a system based on crypto smart cards. My company has one for interacting with government services and fulfilling regulatory requirements. And just about everyone living here has an NHI photo ID smart card. The crypto chip on board provides a secure means to establish identity and authorization to my records and NHI services. The same card is used when visiting doctors and paying for services.#
(Now, I wonder, why cannot I have a simple means to import the data into the Health app on my iPhone. These walled gardens of corporate "innovation" are really boring in how utterly self-serving they are. But that's another topic for another day.)#

Thursday October 28, 2021; 9:44 PM EDT

It's difficult to describe to friends and family in the USA how utterly broken the medical system is there. For many, who have decent insurance, there is little appreciation for how much better, fairer, and cheaper it could all be. Until you have experienced the Taiwan medical system, you realize that the US has not a system but rather a hodgepodge of medical markets, broken ones at that. I can and will expound on this topic some other day.#
But for now, my motivation for writing this brief entry is to express a bit of delight for today's latest "hack" (and to give some praise to the National Health Insurance administration). Consider this bit of XML:#

That's the opening bits to my comprehensive health records detailing office visits, prescriptions filled at pharmacies, test results, etc. Every interaction with doctors, clinics, hospitals over the years is recorded and available to me and my doctors. The data is available in a variety of formats for human and computer consumption, and I can download it on demand by logging into my account on the NHI website.#
Logging into the website is not a mere matter of username and password. Taiwan has put in place a system based on crypto smart cards. My company has one for interacting with government services and fulfilling regulatory requirements. And just about everyone living here has an NHI photo ID smart card. The crypto chip on board provides a secure means to establish identity and authorization to my records and NHI services. The same card is used when visiting doctors and paying for services.#
(Now, I wonder, why cannot I have a simple means to import the data into the Health app on my iPhone. These walled gardens of corporate "innovation" are really boring in how utterly self-serving they are. But that's another topic for another day.)#

Last update: Saturday October 30, 2021; 4:13 AM EDT.