The Director-General of Nursing and Health Care, Tsay Shwu-Feng, gave a speech at the 2020 Taiwan International Nursing Conference Endorsed by ICN.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare of Taiwan has started to focus heavily on “Home Nursing Care, Effective Nursing, and Smart Nursing” since 2018. One significant result is the development of an innovative career path for the nurse practitioners, which is diverse, flexible, and transparent in terms of work environment, shift arrangement, and compensation.

In an effort to address the unknown, uncertain, and unpredictable difficulties in homecare, we came up with a “Home, with Mazu’s Blessing” team proposal and participated in the Presidential Hackathon Competition in 2019. A Home-based Smart Care Platform was the proposed solution. We were the first of 5 outstanding teams to receive the Teams of Excellence Award from 132 teams. We hope to replicate the idea behind this success in the community's chronic disease care and make it an effective way to create the local healthcare economies in the future.

This year saw the outbreak of COVID-19, as well as the Nightingale’s 200-year commemoration. The Ministry has launched a series of “World Health Day” activities to help raise the awareness of the nursing and midwifery professions; and “Taiwan Can Help” activities to extend our connection with the world.