New Opportunities for Healthcare Driven by Smart Technology

Abstract

Taiwan officially entered the era of negative population growth in 2020, with the number of births falling below the number of deaths. Taiwan society is facing the severe problems of low birthrate and aging population, which will exacerbate the social gap in medical resources. Fortunately, rapid progress in developing smart technologies (Button et al., 2014) should bring new opportunities for healthcare. Therefore, the focus of and approach to healthcare should be adjusted (While & Dewsbury, 2011). On the one hand, applying smart technology in medical / nursing staff education offers myriad opportunities for improvement (Car et al., 2019), including using virtual reality in training, using mobile technology tools in education, and using Internet of Things technology to assist medical/nursing staff in the clinical-care process. Moreover, smart education technology will play an important, auxiliary role in the healthcare field in terms of mobile applications, robot practice, simulation experience, digital medicine, and telemedicine and influence the future of medical/nursing health care education (Bajpai et al., 2019). On the other hand, using smart technology to promote healthcare through various innovative healthcare design activities will help develop older-adult-friendly technology products, systems, services, and even living environments (Wang et al., 2015). These include remote home care systems, smart homes, rehabilitation systems, environment-assisted living, intelligent mobile assistance systems, communication platforms and social networks, accompanying robots, and interactive entertainment technology, among others. Smart technology will provide family members and professional medical staffs with more-convenient and efficient healthcare support, maximize the effectiveness of healthcare resources, and drive the development of related industries (Insel, 2017). The title of this column is interdisciplinary applications of healthcare and technology: education, research, and practice. In using smart technology to support healthcare, key research and practical issues will be how to apply related innovations to promote medical education, combine clinical research, and effectively integrate smart technology into healthcare.