History

There was a large population during the 70's and 80's in Banqiao and Tuchen District, New Taipei City; however, there was not any modern hospital in these areas. Therefore, the seriously injured workers and ‘in critical condition’ patients had to transfer to Taipei City. Under this circumstance, many of them were delayed in receiving a proper medical treatment due to the long traveling distance. Mr. Yu-Ziang Hsu, founder of the Far Eastern Group, was aware of the situation and had based on his belief of "By the society, for the society" having Far Eastern Memorial Foundation setup for the construction of hospital, emergency rescue, free clinic for the poor and sick, and inspiring medical and medicine research. Far Eastern Memorial Hospital (FEMH) was established in Banqiao on April 1, 1981 and with 150 beds ready for service. FEHM was accredited by the Ministry of Education as the secondary teaching hospital to be in 1983, the secondary teaching hospital in 1985, district hospital in 1988, district hospital & teaching hospital in 1991 to 1997, and district hospital and Class II Teaching Hospital in 2000 to 2003.

FEMH started a co-op program with National Taiwan University Hospital in 1999 under the leadership of Professor Shu-Hsun Chu for realizing the vision of "becoming a medical center". FEMH has been equipped with 1,043 beds since 2001, and accredited as the first medical center in Taipei County by the Department of Health in 2006. FEMH has had a vision of "becoming a humanity medical center" established in the end of 2006 and with the mission of Far Eastern Memorial Foundation realized. In 2008, FEMH modified the vision to "patients' first choice of medical center.", and accredited as Medical Center in 2009 and 2013 successively.

There are 106 divisions in FEMH including Cardiovascular Center, Endocrinology and Metabolism Divisions, General Surgery Divisions, Obstetrics Divisions, Gynecology Divisions, Pediatrics Gastroenterology Divisions, and other medical divisions. In terms of medical units, Clinical Pathology Department, Anatomical Pathology Department, Medical Imaging Department, Nuclear Medicine Department, Nursing Department, Pharmacy and Dietary Department, providing comprehensive medical services.

In August 2021, the president handover ceremony was held. Kuan-Ming Chiu, a surgeon from Cardiovascular Surgery Division, became FEMH’s 7th president. President Chiu will lead the hospital to practice an agile, pragmatic and innovative medical culture. We expect to fulfill the corporate social responsibility granted by Far Eastern Medical Foundation by our innovative medical technology and nursing services. Lately, we will continue to focus on sustainable development and achieve the peak of excellence.

Service & Equipment

FEMH floor space measures192,252.75㎡, 1,415 beds are equipped for service, 6,500 outpatients visit in a day, and around 400 patients are treated each day in the emergency room that is ranked fourth place nationwide with a hospital bed occupation rate of over 85% documented. In terms of equipment, FEMH keeps inputting modern instruments, for example, Dual Source CT, chemo Therapy, Tomo Therapy, Flex Scanner and 3T-MRI have been imported in recent years to help upgrade diagnosis and therapy result. FEMH provides quality medical service to the residents of Taipei Metropolitan area with a comprehensive medical team and advanced medical equipment.

Teaching

FEMH was accredited as medical center in 2009. Now, the hospital is the main teaching hospital of National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, National Taiwan University, and Fu Jen Catholic University. We accept students from public and private medical schools across the country to come to the hospital for internships and training.

Recently, FEMH has cooperated with the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Joint Commission of Taiwan and the Taiwan Association of Medical Education to promote after-graduation general medical training for doctors and dentist; training program for clinical medical staff and general medical teachers; and clinical skills of teaching hospital. FEMH also assists to cultivate professional medical personnel and training plan based on the curriculum designed of pre-graduation medical education, and continues after graduation.

FEMH provides all-around medical education and cross-disciplinary for students to learn-by-doing. We established an Evidence-based Medicine Center to promote the application of empirical medicine in clinical care, shared decision-making between doctors and patients, and choosing wisely, to arise the quality of our medical services. We established Teacher Education Center, which has been certificated by Joint Commission of Taiwan, conducting various teacher training courses and advancing the quality of clinical teaching and training. We also established Clinical Skill Center, which equips objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) certificated by the Ministry of Health and Welfare. The Clinical Skill Center provides various model molds and simulated situation training and assessment to improve the clinical skills of various personnel and ensure patient safety. Every year, physicians and medical staff are encouraged to participate in seminars and advanced studies at home and abroad to learn the latest medical knowledge.

Since 1999 FEMH has delegated medical personnel abroad to pursue advanced education in renowned university like Harvard University and University of Cambridge in order to help improve the medical quality of FEMH and link to the world.

Research

The Medical Research Department of FEMH actively promotes the development of academic research and constructing a high-quality research and industry-academia collaboration environment; strengthens basic research infrastructure and cooperation energy; integrates in-hospital resources to promote group research; cultivates talents; encourages cross-field and cross-team research collaboration, injects various project funds and bonuses; and improves the publication of SCI papers. throughout the hospital, The Medical Research Department also focus on cell therapy and precision medicine, and collaborate with biotechnology industry and alliances. We also deploy the application of big data and artificial intelligence (AI), and conduct academic research cooperation with well-known academic research institutions in Taiwan and all around the world to improve medical profession and quality, and promote the development of medical and health technology.

Management

FEMH has an organizational structure setup including Strategy Planning Department, Internal Audit Department, Secretary Department, Information Technology Department, Human Resources Department, Accounting Department, Medical Affairs Department, General Affairs Department, Supply & Material Department, Mechanical & Medical Engineering Department, Occupational Safety Department, Quality Center, Health Management Center, Health development Center, and Social Work Department, for business development.

In recent years, FEMH focus on environmental sustainability and the health of colleagues and the community. In 2010, FEMH established TOSHMS (Taiwan Occupational Safety and Health Management System) and ISO 14001 (Environmental Management System). Both two system continued to get certification until now. In 2018, FEMH won the TCSA "TOP50 Taiwan Sustainable Enterprise Award", becoming the first medical institution to become the top 50 companies in Taiwan.

In order to improve patient safety and medical quality, FEMH continues to improve the integration of medical information systems such as intelligence and automation; promotes AI, data platforms, and medical and disease shared decision (SDM) projects; and automatically monitors more than 1,000 quality indicators by BI platform. The real-time monitoring system is available to monitor patients’ status medical quality. Each department also continues to promote quality circles and define standard operation procedures to introduce and substantiate ISO9001.

FEMH will continue to follow foundation’s vision, and carry out short, medium and long-term plans on schedule, introduce various new medical technologies, improve quality and patient safety to meet patients’ satisfaction. FEMH moves toward the vision of The first choice medical center of the Public.

Future Prospect

Looking back at the FEMH’s innovation and progress, despite we suffer the impact of COVID-19, we still have made many breakthroughs, in the fields of medical technology and telemedicine. Although the situation of COVID-19 is still unclear, FEMH continues to develop core expertise (3C2T1M1N), stem cell therapy and smart medical care. We look forward to seeing more results showing and landing next year.

Looking forward to FEMH’s future, we have already started enrolling students of the institute of Clinical Medicine of Yuan Ze University has in 2021. This will also become an important support for the medical research of the FEMH. We are also planning a new building for medical research building with the support of the foundation. Next, FEMH Taoyuan is just passed the review of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. We look forward to replicating FEMH’s successful experience and benefiting more people in more regions. We are excited to see wonderful future of FEMH.