-Patient-Centered Care-

To ensure that the public is continuously understood and receives proper transitions across all stages of seeking medical care, the Hospital utilizes an integrated data platform to grasp in-hospital workflows and care quality, reducing information gaps. Additionally, clear and accessible feedback and grievance mechanisms are established to provide immediate responses to the questions and needs of patients and their families. Furthermore, the Hospital proactively bridges community clinics and subsequent care institutions, ensuring that clinical conditions and critical care points are fully and seamlessly handed over, thereby preventing medical support from interrupting due to field transitions.

• Seamless Care

Integrated Discharge Services

To enhance the continuity of care quality, the Hospital established Taiwan’s first “Follow-up Care Institution Referral Platform” in 2007, which was fully redesigned and optimized in 2019. The platform facilitates early communication and coordination between discharge planning case managers and the institutions to which patients and their families plan to transfer, while also serving as a mechanism for care quality management.

After a patient is transferred and admitted to a care institution, the institution’s responsible staff may directly access the patient’s medical information through the platform, including basic information, outpatient appointment schedules, tube placement status, wound condition, discharge summary, physical examination reports, and key follow-up care instructions. This helps reduce the time required for handover between the Hospital’s medical team and the institution. One week after admission, the institution’s responsible staff is also required to report the patient’s care status to the Hospital, ensuring that patients continue to receive comprehensive and continuous care after discharge.

In addition, the Discharge Planning Service Team of the Community Healthcare Center organizes two post-hospital care institution seminars each year. Professional lecturers from our hospital (e.g., the infection control team, hospice care team, wound care team, etc.) and institution directors are invited to conduct case discussions, professional courses, and exchange of opinions regarding referred patients. The professional knowledge and suggestions discussed during the meetings are compiled into records and uploaded onto the platform for institution directors to download and review. This helps establish a quality consultation mechanism between our hospital and care institutions to jointly safeguard the quality of patient care.

• 2025 Annual Execution Results of Strategic Objectives

F2-1 Bed Turnover Rate
Annual Goals	Implementation Status	Target Achievement
Q1≧3.32 Q2≧3.47 Q3≧3.57 Q4≧3.65	Q1：3.55 Q2：3.60 Q3：3.58 Q4：3.47 Reasons for Unmet Target: In response to the shortage of nursing personnel, the allocation of certain hospital beds was adjusted accordingly.	X

Community Health Promotion

In the past, healthcare systems mostly focused on acute treatment and in-hospital care as their core, whereas community health promotion often remained limited to single-event health education lectures or screening services. With the intensifying trends of population aging and declining birthrates, the health care model is also step-by-step aligning with policy directions, extending forward from disease treatment to community prevention and health promotion. Its objective is no longer confined solely to the early detection of diseases, but through institutionalized and continuous health interventions, to assist the elderly in maintaining physical and mental functions, delaying the onset of frailty and disability, thereby extending healthy life expectancy and elevating the quality of life in later years.

To implement the prevention and delay of disability, National Cheng Kung University Hospital continuously penetrates deep into communities to conduct health promotion advocacy. Combining various festive events, the Hospital provides free screenings, health consultations, and lifestyle recommendations, encouraging elders to integrate healthy behaviors into their daily lives and shift from passive medical seeking to proactive health management. In 2025, the Hospital organized a total of 1,090 community health promotion and related activities, continuously expanding the reach of health care services and strengthening the supportive network for community elderly care.

• 2025 Annual Execution Results of Strategic Objectives

 

S1-1 Community Health Promotion Activities
Annual Goals	Implementation Status	Target Achievement
More than 300 community health promotion and screening events held	Reaching 1,090 sessions	〇
S1-2 Enhancing Discharge Planning for Long-Term Care Continuity
Annual Goals	Implementation Status	Target Achievement
Long-term care 2.0 services have received over 650 cases	Cumulative total: 936 recipients	O

NCKU Ren-Ai Senior Fitness Club

Facing the trends of population aging, increasing demand for chronic disease care, and the diversification of community health risks, National Cheng Kung University Hospital established the "National Cheng Kung University Ren'ai Senior Fitness Club" near the Ren'ai Neighborhood Activity Center in 2022, extending in-hospital medical services to community health promotion and strengthening the connection among medical care, long-term care, and local resources. The Club adopts an interdisciplinary resource integration model, linking professional teams including the NCKU Department of Industrial Design, the Research Center of Sports Science and Higher Education, as well as the Department of Nursing, Department of Social Work, Department of Nutrition, and Department of Geriatrics to provide elderly individuals with health promotion, exercise guidance, and care support. Upon the conclusion of each course period (approximately once every 3 months), the Club regularly broadcasts satisfaction surveys via the "NCKU Fitness Praise" LINE@ account. In 2025, a total of 3 satisfaction surveys were conducted with 282 participant-times, yielding an extraordinarily high average satisfaction score of 95.9 points.

In addition to serving local citizens, this venue concurrently functions as a platform for teaching internships and social participation, providing a stage for student and external unit study tours, employee community practical training, and retired employees to continuously contribute their expertise. In 2025, a total of 25 study tours for students and external units were organized, with 108 participants in total; starting from the same year, the capacity was expanded to 19 regular weekly fitness classes, all guided by fitness coaches possessing professional certifications, which is expected to stably provide approximately 380 participant-times of health promotion services every week. Looking ahead, the Club will take four key dimensions as its main theme to continuously deepen community health development and long-term care integration.

The National Cheng Kung University Ren'ai Senior Fitness Club continuously leverages data-driven health management as a foundation to assist the elderly in mastering their own health statuses, serving as the core basis for health education interventions, exercise curriculum arrangements, and clinical referrals. In 2025, the Club assisted a total of 330 participants in completing the ICOPE assessments and linked 913 records of InBody body composition analysis reports. Through the automatic screening of SMI (Skeletal Muscle Mass Index) values, the system precisely identified 100 individuals at risk for sarcopenia, subsequently broadcasting targeted health education information and recommending specialized exercise courses to elevate participants' health literacy and self-management awareness.

To optimize operational efficiency and the precision of health management, the Club launched its digital platform in late August 2023. In 2025, the platform attracted 1,394 new users and broadcasted over 49,000 health messages in cumulative total. Furthermore, through platform-based centralized management, it saved an average of nearly 3 hours of administrative tasks daily. In the same year, the Club also provided 538 participant-times of senior functional fitness tests and 804 participant-times of body composition analyses. Remarkably, 228 participants demonstrated significant improvements in both muscle endurance and cardiorespiratory endurance after one year of continuous participation, fully showcasing the tangible efficacy of regular exercise interventions in functional maintenance, frailty prevention, and health promotion for older adults.

At the end of 2024, National Cheng Kung University Hospital integrated local resources to collaborate with Advanced MedTech and the North District Dynasty Clinic to establish the "NCKU Chao-Dai Smart Fitness Station“, extending clinical healthcare into community preventive medicine and practicing the health promotion model of "integrating healthcare with exercise." This venue introduces intelligent fitness equipment; after an initial assessment and equipment orientation, citizens can independently access the facility for workouts. The smart equipment assists in ensuring correct movements and mitigating the risks of sports injuries, while digitally generating real-time workout records and health report cards post-exercise to assist the elderly in building regular exercise habits. In 2025, the Hub operated for 239 days, recording a cumulative total of 4,466 user-times with an average of 18.7 user-times per day, successfully demonstrating the concrete benefits of intelligent sports venues for community geriatric health promotion.

Furthermore, in 2024, the Hospital transformed the historical site of the former Deguang Church in the East District of Tainan City into the "Cheng-Yi Shi-Zu" Integrated Community Health Care Demonstration Site. Throughout 2025, the Hospital continuously capitalized on the advantages of this physical hub to periodically organize health lectures, chronic disease prevention programs, and localized health education courses, thereby assisting community elders in elevating their health literacy and establishing regular exercise habits to mitigate the risks of disability and construct a sustainable healthcare network that supports aging in place. In 2025, a total of 6 community health promotion events were conducted, recording a cumulative total of 262 participant-times.

• Medical Triage

Cheng-Hsing Medical Alliance

Currently, National Cheng Kung University Hospital operates a total of 1,359 beds and dedicatedly focuses on the critical, acute, difficult, and rare disease care mandates expected of a premier national medical center. However, the load capacity of a single institution ultimately has its limits; therefore, implementing the Tiered Healthcare Policy is an essential measure to safeguard overall medical quality. Following the establishment of cooperative wards with regional hospitals in 2017, the Hospital founded the "Cheng-Hsing Medical Alliance" in 2019, building bidirectional referral partnerships with 705 primary clinics and hospitals. Utilizing digital platforms and SMS automated notification mechanisms, the alliance facilitates the real-time sharing of clinical condition information to reinforce the seamless transition between acute medical care and subsequent continuous care. This ensure that once a patient’s condition stabilizes, they can smoothly transition to an appropriate care institution, effectively preventing the over-concentration of medical resources at the acute and critical care end, and collaboratively forging a medical alliance that epitomizes “Cheng Kung Care, Successful Happiness."

• 2025 Annual Execution Results of Strategic Objectives

F4-1 Growth Rate of Transferred- In Patients
Annual Goals	Implementation Status	Target Achievement
8,000 transferred-in patients per quarter	Q1: 7,653 patients Q2: 8,356 patients Q3: 7,997 patients Q4: 8,438 patients	〇
F4-2 Growth Rate of Transferred-Out Patients
Annual Goals	Implementation Status	Target Achievement
5,000 transferred-out patients per quarter	Q1: 6,900 patients Q2: 6,954 patients Q3: 7,129 patients Q4: 7,338 patients	〇

Cross-domain cooperation

To ensure that all donated materials prioritize clinical care needs, patient welfare, and vulnerable groups as core principles, the Hospital upholds the philosophies of "Patient-Centered Care" and "Social Mutual Benefit." It has established a rigorous Material Donation Management Mechanism to ensure that social philanthropic resources are utilized fairly, effectively, and transparently. Through systematic donation registration, source documentation, purpose tracking, and information disclosure, the Hospital actively prevents resource waste, improper allocation, or potential conflicts of interest, while concurrently encouraging the selection of eco-friendly, reusable, or low-carbon materials to balance care quality with environmental sustainability.

In 2025, the Hospital accepted a total of 34 batches of donated materials, with a cumulative total value of NT$9,529,782, all of which were properly allocated to and utilized by relevant departments post-official approval. Notably, Weltall Technology Corporation has donated Medical Outreach Vehicles to National Cheng Kung University Hospital for two consecutive years. Beyond supporting healthcare services in rural and remote areas, these vehicles also serve as dedicated shuttle buses between the Hospital and its strategic alliance healthcare networks, assisting in linking medical resources across the Greater Tainan area. Through transportation support and resource integration, this initiative mitigates barriers to seeking medical care and enhances healthcare accessibility for rural populations and mobility-impaired citizens, acting as a vital bridge that connects Greater Tainan's medical resources with community residents.

Post-acute Care(PAC)

There are a total of 15 hospitals cooperating with the Hospital for PAC referral, among which 7 hospitals are authorized to implement the home-based model. The Hospital has appointed five dedicated “PAC case managers” (covering stroke, fragility fractures, frail older adults, heart failure and traumatic nerve injury) to serve as the liaison among the medical center, family members, and the contracted hospitals. These case managers are responsible for assessment, health education, development of interdisciplinary care plans, coordination of referrals, connection with community resources, follow-up management, and monitoring of quality indicators. In 2025, 15 cases were referred under the PAC home-based model and 16 under the day care model.

 

 

In addition to optimizing the allocation of medical resources, the Hospital's PAC team continuously refines case management and care quality, while actively participating in national quality competitions:

• Heart Failure Domain: In 2024, the Heart Failure PAC team was honored with the Gold Award in the "Taiwan Healthcare Quality Competition" organized by the Joint Commission on Taiwan (JCT).
• Stroke Downward Referral Performance: The Hospital's Stroke PAC team achieved the distinguished practical rank of 3rd place among all medical centers nationwide for its stroke case downward referral rates in both 2022 and 2024.
• Regional Talent Cultivation: Aligning with national policies, the Hospital collaborated with the Tainan City Government Health Bureau to host the "Post-Acute Care Training Course for Frail Elders." This initiative actively trains new blood in primary healthcare, substantially strengthening the network capacity for treating PAC cases across the Southern Region.

The aforementioned honors epitomize the concrete efficacy of the Hospital's active promotion of the PAC program, translating the Tiered Healthcare and Bidirectional Referral Policies into real-world actions.

Home Medical Care – Acute Care at Home (ACAH)

To enable patients to receive real-time and comprehensive medical care within their familiar home environments, National Cheng Kung University Hospital continuously promotes Home-Based Medical Care and Hospital-at-Home Acute Care Services, collectively driven by a multidisciplinary professional care team. Upon assessing that a patient's condition is stable and satisfies the enrollment criteria, the patient can receive subsequent treatment and care directly at home, minimizing the inconvenience of traveling back and forth to the hospital and rendering medical services closer to patient needs. The team integrates telehealth medical monitoring equipment with video check-in care mechanisms; family members or caregivers assist in periodically measuring vital signs and transmitting the data back to the system in real time. In the event of an abnormal metric, the medical team can swiftly master the situation and intervene promptly, fully ensuring the immediacy and safety of the treatment.

Concurrently, during the initial visit of a newly enrolled case, the pharmacist accompanies the medical team, carrying the necessary medications to ensure that treatment can be initiated immediately upon the physician's completion of the clinical examination. Beyond assisting in the evaluation of antibiotic selection and administration methods, the pharmacist provides tailored dosage adjustment recommendations based on the patient's liver and renal functions, highlights potential adverse drug reactions, streamlines chronic disease medications, and delivers clear, accessible medication counseling to patients and their families. Within this innovative care model, the pharmacist is no longer merely an individual who dispenses medicine, but a vital companion to patients and their families, operating in seamless collaboration with the entire healthcare team.

At the same time, the introduction of home-based medical equipment has further elevated care quality and diagnostic efficiency. Facilitated by these instruments, the medical team can more rapidly master patients' conditions to provide more immediate, precise diagnoses and treatments, allowing healthcare to truly walk into families and forging a warmer, reassuring, and age-friendly care environment for an aging society. As of December 2025, the Hospital-at-Home Acute Care Team has successfully treated and cared for 45 patients.

Excellent patient-physician communication is not only the cornerstone of medical service quality, but also a concrete manifestation of humanistic care, accompanying diverse populations through various life challenges. Confronting the issues of population aging, health inequities, rural resource disparities, and the care needs of vulnerable groups, the Hospital continuously integrates social care into its core medical services. Through philanthropic engagement, health promotion, community linkage, rural outreach services, and multifaceted support mechanisms, the Hospital extends the professional influence of a national medical center. It is our fervent hope to safeguard public health through more empathetic, accessible, and inclusive actions, collaboratively constructing a more resilient and compassionate support network with families, communities, and society.