In the next fifty to one hundred years, how will hospitals be different? If hospitals, doctors, and nurses are still around, the future will be wards at home and long distance medicine. This concept is called "houspital" (house + hospital).
In the past, the highest costs were associated with moving a patient from home into the hospital, running tests, examining patients, and lots of waiting. Actually, all of this waiting is wasteful because the time of patients and medical staff is extremely valuable. Furthermore, there are many areas of diagnosis which are still uncertain and unclear. These areas are high cost. So, if, through advancements in information technology and medical equipment, patients are no longer required to go to the hospital, then the majority of their problems can be resolved at home first.
Liberating Doctors and Nurses. This is an extremely important concept. Everyone can think it over for a moment. Presently, many of society's elite attend medical school to become doctors. But in actuality, what a doctor can do is much smaller than most imagine because of limitations from the national health insurance system. So, it is our responsibility to pursue alliances with different industries. Being connected to other industries will allow health care industry access to an array of different capabilities, and afterward, the production capabilities of doctors and nurses will be completely liberated. If a doctor is not limited by the front desk of the clinic, instead of seeing fifty to one hundred patients every morning, he can monitor the physiological signals of 20,000 to 50,000 patients. Now, that's one advanced transformation. I have high expectations for all of Chung Yuan's teachers and students. It's my sincere hope that all of you will, through technological innovation, assist us in liberating our production capabilities.
Min Sheng is currently in the midst of a two year U-Care plan. Thus far, after a year and a half, U-Care's implementation experience has concerned either a medical organization or the medical industry itself proactively connecting different industries. This includes the Shen Tong Corporation making the IT platform, as well as the cooperation of a few medical device companies, and insurance companies.
After that, the scope of U-Care will surpass the boundary limitation of a hospital and drive the development of new industry within the community. Finally, we hope to improve the health of the elderly, reduce the cost to the community, and spur new business.
Up to now, we have had approximately 250 patients participate in trial tests, which actually isn't many. In the next phase, beginning next year, we can apply for a new project, and I wish that everyone here, if you're willing to, can cooperate with us in presenting our project to the Ministry of Economic Affairs in order to apply for a new subject. This second phase will likely have a scope of two thousand people.
We can take Min-Sheng's patients out of the hospital monthly on a rolling basis using U-Care for appropriate illness conditions.
Innovative electronics achieve a service industry enabler. To give you an example, Instructor Lu's impressive glucose tester implant got me thinking about whether or not to place an implant in every patient. These implants could detect glucose levels, monitor heart rates, blood pressure, and immunity, while drastically reducing measurement costs. I've directly observed that the many hospital costs are spent on running tests, and obtaining measurements such as blood pressure and body temperature. Before examining a patient and diagnosing illnesses, doctors must first undertake all of these time consuming procedures. Furthermore, waiting for all of the measurements is a waste of time for patients and a big cost to them as well. If we can really place implants in patients' bodies, and do long distance measurements, then diagnosis will become much easier. In turn, this would really change the study of medicine and the definition of the hospital will change along with it. Therefore, fifty to a hundred years from now the concept of a hospital will be completely different.
Research and Development Instructor Zhong's electronic tongue system (a kind of basic taste imitation organism) made me think of a smart sensor. In fact, whether at the hospital or in the home, sensors will be extremely important because measurement costs are too high, especially the costs of having doctors and nurses doing the measurements manually. The advantages of sensors are speed and the ability to spot trends. If we had sensors on a large scale, we could precisely and quickly monitor 50,000 people at once, spotting trends at the same time. Currently, we have people willing to pay money because most people have their own insurance in addition to national health insurance! As long as measurements or smart sensors are able to change the whole community or an individual's risk profile, this business model will emerge. So, finally we hope that innovative electronic products can achieve a service industry enabler allowing service to become a possible medium and driving force.
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