14 PERSPECTIVES ON BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS | VOL 43 | 2025 for digital health applications (Lu & Liang, 2024). Similarly, PharmaCloud, released in 2013, focuses on prescription medication records and alerts providers about potential negative drug interactions (Lu & Liang, 2024). Following its implementation, the incidence of overlapping medications decreased significantly. In 2014, My Health Bank launched as an IDbased program that allows patients to access their medical records, insurance status, and health history as part of the NHI mobile app (Lu & Liang, 2024). New features added in 2020 were preordering and locating where masks were available, allowing for easy access to personal protective equipment (Tsai et al., 2021). The inquiry rate (percentage of patients whose records were accessed by providers) has slowly increased: The goal is to reach 95%. In 2022, rates at hospitals and clinics hovered between 76% and 93% (Lu & Liang, 2024). The app prioritizes autonomy and likely contributes to citizens’ extreme trust in the Taiwanese health-care system. It also improves health literacy—how people understand and use health-related information to make decisions and follow a treatment regimen (Tsai et al., 2021). Increasing health literacy can make the public more receptive to new health technology and improve medication compliance. One model of the integration of all three precision health components is 3D printing, which allows for tissue regeneration to be structurally supported. As discussed previously, periodontal regeneration is gaining traction: A 3D printing technique known as fueled deposition modeling is capable of mimicking extracellular matrix, bone, and cartilage structures (Huang et al., 2024), increasing stability and longterm sustainability of dental procedures like implants. Procedures may be individualized based on a patient’s condition and risk factors as tracked in the biobank, and doctors throughout Taiwan can access centralized patient records (Wang & Muennig, 2022). Challenges While Taiwan has made substantial efforts to further develop and enhance the TPHI, multiple challenges still need to be addressed, such as improving diversity in the biobank, ensuring data privacy, and enhancing public transparency. Biobank diversity One of the key challenges centers around the degree of inclusiveness of the Taiwan Biobank. To function most effectively, the biobank should be statistically representative of the entire Taiwanese population in terms of gender, ethnicity, age, and other demographic factors. Currently, Indigenous groups are largely excluded from the data collection due to extremely strict legal restrictions (Feng et al., 2022). Incorporation of the Indigenous community is a multifaceted issue involving both cultural and political elements. Indigenous groups tend to avoid sharing genetic information due to concerns about exploitation. Additionally, the initial sample of 150,000 people included no children and more women than men (Feng et al., 2022), substantial drawbacks. The longitudinal data collection may not be a completely representative sample of the population of Taiwan today. Another weakness is that the Taiwan Biobank primarily houses physiological data, yet physical and mental health are closely intertwined. Numerous studies demonstrate the connection between physical activity and improved emotional well-being, while sedentary lifestyles significantly increase the risk of anxiety and depression. The lack of psychological data in the biobank may mask important undiscovered correlations between physical and mental health. Privacy protection Second, there are legal concerns in the medical sector about combining information and communications technology with AI (Hsiao et al., 2022). The concerns span informed consent, safety and transparency, and algorithmic biases for patient data (Naik et al., 2022). Taiwan’s government justifies mass surveillance for outbreak control under the principles of “legality of emergency,” raising questions about the balance between privacy and public health needs. The electronic footprints tracked during the COVID-19 pandemic arguably compromised citizens’ privacy. The Central Epidemic Command Center maintained that the collected information served solely for case confirmation and contacting those at risk of infection (Su, 2021). Yet, some volunteers who are considering submitting data to the biobank hesitate due to concerns about traceability. Questions about privacy protection have been assessed by the Taiwan Association for Human Rights. Complete anonymity is likely impossible to achieve but improving information and communications technology tools may assist. Commercialization (i.e., making private data available to researchers for a fee) is another area of concern. Pharmaceutical companies could approach access with a profit-driven mindset (Anderlik, 2003). It is difficult to assess where to draw the line in terms of sharing the data with companies, as there may be both private financial returns and public health ben-
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTA0OTQ5OA==