The Provision of Health Care by Family Physicians in Taiwan as Illustrated With Population Pyramids.

Family physicians serve as personal doctors for individuals and their families and also act as gatekeepers of the health care system. If no special status is accorded to family physicians, however, then the rates at which health care recipients utilize their service might be affected. In the present cross-sectional study, representative claims data sets for 2010 from Taiwan's National Health Insurance program, a health care system in which beneficiaries are not required to register with a family physician, were used to investigate the provision of health care to the population by family physicians.

Official Websites of Local Health Centers in Taiwan: A Nationwide Study.

Local health centers (LHCs) play a key role in public health. Because it has now become popular to seek health information on the Internet, an effective website is indispensable to an LHC. Our study aimed to survey the official websites of LHCs in Taiwan with an evaluation framework.

Features of Online Hospital Appointment Systems in Taiwan: A Nationwide Survey.

Background: In the Internet era, many web-based appointment systems for hospitals have been established to replace traditional systems. Our study aimed to highlight the features of online appointment systems for hospitals in Taiwan, where patients can visit outpatient departments without a referral.

Methods: All hospitals online appointment systems were surveyed in October 2018.

Use of Facebook by Hospitals in Taiwan: A Nationwide Survey.

: Social media advertising has become increasingly influential in recent years. Because Facebook has the most active users worldwide, many hospitals in Taiwan have created official Facebook fan pages. Our study was to present an overview of official Facebook fan pages of hospitals in Taiwan.

Hospital-Owned Apps in Taiwan: Nationwide Survey.

Background: Over the last decade, the use of mobile phone apps in the health care industry has grown rapidly. Owing to the high penetration rate of Internet use in Taiwan, hospitals are eager to provide their own apps to improve the accessibility of medical care for patients.

Objective: The aims of this study were to provide an overview of the currently available hospital-owned apps in Taiwan and to conduct a cross-hospital comparison of app features.

Pattern of Visits to Older Family Physicians in Taiwan.

Many family physicians still practice at an old age. Nevertheless, their practice patterns have scarcely been studied. To address this lack of research, the current study analyzed claims data for a total of 2,018,440 visits to 171 family physicians in 2011 sourced from Taiwan's National Health Insurance Research Database.