NHRI Forum was established in 1997, and merged with Division of Health Policy Research to become Center for Health Policy Research and Development in 2006. By organizing Forum project committees, NHRI Forum assisted the government to tackle and solve urgent health issues for the people in Taiwan, including command and construct the medical system toward urgent health crisis, epidemic situation control, biological pathogen disaster prevention, contingency medical measures and anti-biological terrorist attack.
In 2002, Tobacco Control Conference in Taiwan has developed measures according to the 2002 white paper (Dr. Chin-Chuan Yeh) and reviewed the effect since “Health and Welfare Surcharge of Tobacco Products” started to tax. In addition, NHRI Forum held National Health and Medical Policy Conference and published an annual report. Besides, NHRI Forum published 9 volume academic papers and policy analysis reports according to National Health Insurance policy assessment.
Furthermore, NHRI Forum constructed the life and medicine ethics value system, then published “IRB Q&A”, “Informed consent Q&A”, and “IRB evaluation basis for health care facility.” Though medical manpower and talent cultivation program, NHRI Forum completed “Specialty and subspecialty medical manpower cultivation”, “Specialty manpower distribution”, “Medical personnel cultivation and medical care system improvement”, and “Medical research talent cultivation” planning projects. Furthermore, by nurse practitioner program, NHRI Forum completed “Nurse practitioner cultivation and practice guideline proposal.” NHRI Forum concluded “Child abuse prevention strategy for medical personnel manual” as well.
Over the past half century, medical and health research had already made a major breakthrough in health science on the basis of genomic medicine, environment and lifestyle. In 2013, in order to improve the health and welfare in Taiwan, minister Wen-Ta Chiu (MOHW) and president Hsing-Jien Kung (NHRI) decided to restart NHRI Forum to deeply aim at urgent health issues through empirical research and health policy combination. In August, 2014, NHRI Forum formally restarted and served as the think-tank of the government. Therefore, NHRI Forum focused on significant health issues to reach an agreement and turned into prospective, professional and effective policy proposals through constant expert meetings. It also provided a foundation for the industry to develop academic researches. In sum, NHRI Forum constructs a platform to integrate academic research, policy proposals, and industry practice, thus enhancing the health quality in Taiwan in the future.
The NHRI Forum was established to advance health science knowledge, promote general well-being, and respond to urgent health welfare issues.NHRI Forum employs multidisciplinary and cross-unit operating systems to function as a national think-tank for health and welfare policy to address pressing issues and challenges faced from low-birth rate and aging society, and to meet the needs of health service and daily care of the underprivileged in order to allow labor force to enter workforce at ease to increase labor productivity, thus contributing to a better overall social welfare.
- Strengthen excellence in academic research
- Construct an evidence-based ground for policy analysis
- Agglomerate consensus in health welfare policy and advocate recommendations
- Improve communication between health and welfare fields
- Activate cooperation with international think-tanks
NHRI Forum is well organized refers to the Institute of Medicine, IoM (now National Academy of Medicine, NAM). Additionally, NHRI Forum sets up the “Advisory committee” to call meetings regularly to determine significant and urgent health issues in Taiwan.
- Demographic research and social welfare assessment
- Evaluation of environmental and food safety policy
- Evaluation of National Health Insurance system
- Multidisciplinary integration of healthcare and welfare service system
- Improvement on health and welfare policy in fairness and justice
- Integration of preventive medicine, health promotion and social welfare
The Forum structure is based on the framework of the Institute of Medicine, IoM (now National Academy of Medicine, NAM). NHRI Forum sets up the “Advisory committee” in six research fields consisting of 5-6 advisors and call meetings regularly to determine significant and urgent health issues in Taiwan. The advisory committee will select new issues every year and solicit the convener for each issue. Secondly, the convener organizes “the consultant and research board” to aggregate consensus. The chapter coordinator will call the expert meeting to have sufficient discussions by then.
Steps:
- Raise a proposal: The advisor and MOHW select important issues every year.
- Sorting: NHRI Forum collects all the issues and the advisors sequence issues by Delphi sorting method.
- Discussion: Discuss about the issue list and re-sequence.
- Solicit the convener: The convener candidate will be elected through advisors’ recommendation or being voluntary.
- Determine the issue: Ask for proposals and NHRI Forum will determine the annual projects according to significance, prospection and urgency.
