It is a great pleasure for me to welcome you to the 14th Asian Telemedicine Symposium (ATS2020) in Conjunction with 2020 Annual Meeting of Telecare Industry Association Taiwan (TIAT) on 27-28 November 2020, at College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, in Taipei, Taiwan. The theme of ATS2020 “Telemedicine in Global Health Crisis ” shall provide a platform for speakers and participants to share their experience of using telemedicine in response to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

2020 has been a very challenging year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For our top piority, the safety and well-being of our participants, ATS2020 has been modified to both onsite and online virtual conferences. To provide the maximum flexibility of our participants, the ATS2020 virtual conference program will include realtime video-conferences, on demand technical presentations' materials, onsite and virtual posters/exhibitions, live plenary sessions and parallel sessions.

To cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, countries around the world have adopted many contingency measures. For example, information and communication technologies combined with tele-medical devices and health management information systems were used for disease prevention, control and psychosocial support. Telemedicine services in many countries increased multiple folds in 2020. Taiwan’s Ministry of Health and Welfare also issued an order for medical institutions at all levels in February 2020. Those institutions were required to meet the medical needs of people during home isolation or quarantine to provide remote diagnosis and treatment. Approximately 300 hospitals, 3,000 clinics, and 200 public health centers have provided telemedicine services in accordance to the emergency requirement of telemedicine regulations.

This conference continues the past years of discussion topics and also covers topics, such as emergency medicine, rural health, personal health management, endoscopy, cardiology, hospice care and legal regulations, etc. Through this international symposium, we can come together to learn, share and gain insight into the latest innovations in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.

We are looking forward to excellent meetings and expositions with great doctors, researchers, engineers and scientists from different countries in Asia.  See you at ATS2020 onsite or through our virtual platform.

Best Regards to all!

Heng-Shuen Chen, MD., PhD., LLM.

General Chair, Asia Telemedicine Symposium 2020

President of TIAT, Vice Superintendent of PCH