Taiwan is second among 11 Asia-Pacific countries ranked in the Personalized Health Index unveiled by London-based The Economist during a webinar on building long-term sustainable and personalized healthcare systems Jan. 28.

Scoring 67 out of 100, Taiwan trailed only Singapore,71, and placed ahead of Japan, 64; Australia, 62; and South Korea, 57. China, India and Indonesia finished at the bottom with the respective scores of 38, 36 and 29.

According to the survey, Taiwan’s many strengths include its excellent digital infrastructure, comprehensive health data collection, growing data interoperability and a robust personalized health workforce.

Taiwan is well poised to realize personalized healthcare and could further strengthen its position by increasing investment in related R&D while improving the accessibility of data for research purposes, it added.

Among the four categories comprising the overall index, Taiwan ranked third in Health Information on the strength of its top results in such subcategories as Electronic Health Record Implementation and EHR Strategy.

The country also came in third in Policy Context, with number one rankings in the Access to Companion Diagnostics, Access to Data for Research, Genetic Counsellors, Personalized Health Strategy and Scale-up Funding subcategories.

In terms of Personalized Technologies, Taiwan attained third owing to its second-place spot in the subcategory of Artificial Intelligence Strategy. It finished fifth in Health Services, coming in first in the subcategory of Registry Quality and Access. (SFC-E)