Taiwan academics, medical personnel and officials are all smiles at the launch ceremony for the Digital Medicine Alliance May 14 in Taipei City. (Courtesy of NYMU)

The Digital Medicine Alliance was launched by three Taiwan academic research institutions May 14 in Taipei City with the aim of bolstering integration of cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence and data analysis in health care.
 
DMA consists of National Yang-Ming University in Taipei, the Institute of Data Science and Engineering under National Chiao Tung University in northern Taiwan’s Hsinchu City, and Taipei-based Institute of Information Science under Academia Sinica, the nation’s foremost research organization. Initial alliance efforts are set to focus on R&D of digital solutions to prevent and treat strokes.
 
Ministry of Health and Welfare statistics showed that cerebrovascular disease was the fourth leading cause of death in the country in 2017. The public health risks posed by the condition are expected to grow as Taiwan’s population continues to age, NYMU said.
 
Yang Ueng-cheng, an associate professor of biomedical informatics at the university, said that the overall goal of the alliance is to advance chronic disease prevention and treatment by charting the relationships between DNA, lifestyle and early symptoms.
 
Another major objective is to promote the development and adoption of advanced precision medicine like patient genome sequencing, Yang added.
 
According to Yang, by facilitating early detection and individualized therapies, such techniques can help significantly reduce health care costs. AI solutions can also assist medical personnel with decision-making in the critical early period, called the golden hour, after strokes or other traumatic injuries, he said.
 
NYMU said that results from the initial work on cerebrovascular disease are likely applicable to future alliance research projects on other chronic illnesses. (CPY-E)