MOHW hospitals tout language support, AI tools to improve health care access

Taipei, April 27 (CNA) Senior officials from hospitals under the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) on Monday highlighted interpretation services and planned AI-assisted tools aimed at making health care more accessible to patient groups including foreign nationals during a seminar in Taipei.

Caring for foreign nationals, including by providing language support, is "a capability modern hospitals must have" that is essential to realizing "health care equity," Wu Chien-hsien (吳建賢), a deputy superintendent at MOHW's Taipei Hospital, said at the ministry-hosted seminar.

In his presentation, Wu said Taipei Hospital launched interpretation services on the messaging app LINE in August last year, enabling patients who speak Indonesian, Thai or Vietnamese to make appointments online and receive medical consultation support from interpreters.

Currently, 578 foreign nationals have signed up for the service, he said.

Wu told CNA the hospital can also arrange interpreters to accompany foreign patients during medical visits, with support available not only in the three Southeast Asian languages, but also in English.

He said the on-site interpretation service, launched three years ago, had received a "good" response from foreign patients because "when they speak directly with doctors on their own, some information is often difficult to fully convey."

Together, the two services have helped increase visits by foreign patients to the hospital, with the number rising from 3,419 in the first three months of 2025 to 3,622 in the same period of 2026, according to Wu's presentation.

Wu said Taipei Hospital plans to introduce an AI-powered robot at its entrance later this year to answer patients' questions about hospital services in their preferred language.

Also speaking on AI, Yang Nan-ping (楊南屏), superintendent of MOHW's Taoyuan General Hospital, said the hospital is developing an AI-assisted service that can help patients register with the appropriate department.

Yang said patients who are unsure which department they should visit traditionally call the hospital for advice, but front-desk staff are often busy, may not fully understand what the patient is asking, or may "not always be able to provide answers."

To address those challenges, he said the hospital hopes to use AI to link patients' questions directly to its database and provide real-time responses, whether they are trying to choose the appropriate department or seeking health education information.

Yang said the service will likely be developed as an app, adding that the hospital is co-developing it with an IT company and hopes to first launch a Chinese-language version by the end of the year.