Taipei, Sept. 18 (CNA) Taiwan is keen on developing telecare services to cope with an aging population, and it has advantages to accomplish the feat given its strengths in information and communication technology (ICT) and medical care, officials said Tuesday.
"Telecare services combine social networks, telecommunications and health care. With Taiwan's well-trained medical workers, good medical centers and advanced ICT development, we have the strength to develop this industry, " said Lee Johnsee, Director of Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) and President of Telecare Industry Alliance Taiwan (TIAT) , in a Taiwan-U.K. conference on telecare.
The Executive Yuan has submitted a 10-year program for providing health care to the elderly, he said, and what Taiwan needs to do now is learn from other countries, such as U.K., for its infrastructure and expertise in developing the industry.
The number of citizens who are 65 years-old or older reached 10 percent of Taiwan's national population in 2006, Vice Health Minister Chen Tzay-jinn said. A figure about half of U.K.'s level, meaning Taiwan still has time to work on tackling the aging issue, he added.
Taiwan has some of the best mobile phone service, broadband internet connection, and health care insurance coverage in the world. Coupled with its advanced ICT development, Taiwan is in a wonderful position to develop telecare services for senior citizens, Chen said.
A pilot project has been trying to establish telecare infrastructure in three dimensions -- home care, community care and institution care, Chen said.
The project aims to provide an information-sharing platform and mechanism, develop a supportive mechanism for emergency and consultative services, especially in the rural mountainous and outlying island areas, Chen said.
However, there are limitations that Taiwan has to address, such as a lack of reliable financial support for Long Term Care (LTC) , insufficient telecare devices, and multilingual access barriers for migrant caregivers and the disabled, he pointed out.