Established in 1998, Taiwan’s homegrown Safety and Quality (SNQ) National Quality Label certification system has evolved into far more than a domestic accreditation mechanism. It has become a platform where healthcare services and products benchmark against one another, learn collectively, and continuously raise standards—ultimately benefiting the public at large. Known for its rigor, SNQ certification is valid for only one year, underscoring its insistence on sustained performance rather than one-time achievement.

Over its 28-year history, and under the scrutiny of a total of 160 review committee members, 2,928 services and products nationwide have earned the SNQ mark. Among them, the National Biotechnology and Medical Care Quality Award has emerged as a symbol of honor for Taiwan’s healthcare institutions, encompassing distinctions such as Taiwan’s first Bronze Award, Asia’s first Silver Award, and what is widely regarded as a globally leading Gold Award.

The SNQ Certification and Review Committee is composed of presidents of medical centers, clinical specialists, representatives from medical associations and government, as well as international healthcare experts. Each committee member contributes an independent perspective, enriching the evaluation process with diverse professional insights. Applicant teams seeking SNQ certification for services or products undergo a three-stage review process that includes document review, on-site assessment, and committee deliberation. Their performance is then benchmarked against international standards—such as surgical success rates, recovery outcomes, research achievements, and competitive market analyses—placing Taiwan’s healthcare services and innovations within a global context.

A Pioneer in Evaluation Thinking: Balancing Outcomes and Medical Innovation

While the international healthcare community has only in recent years placed increasing emphasis on outcomes in quality assessment, SNQ adopted this approach much earlier by structuring its evaluation framework around three core pillars: structure, process, and outcome. This comprehensive model examines service design, facility quality, innovation capacity, patient experience, and clinical results in an integrated manner. It is both systematic and closely aligned with internationally recognized healthcare quality assessment models.

The structural dimension accounts for 10 percent of the evaluation and focuses on the integrity of infrastructure and governance. Key indicators include clarity of service objectives and positioning, the appropriateness of human resource structures, compliance of facilities and equipment with standards, and whether environmental and spatial design support patient safety and care efficiency. These elements directly reflect an institution’s physical capacity and institutional maturity, forming the foundational safeguards of healthcare quality.

The process dimension, weighted at 45 percent, assesses execution capability and operational consistency. Indicators encompass the efficiency of resource integration, the robustness of quality assurance mechanisms, team collaboration, standardized operating procedures, and the presence of distinctive strengths and innovation capacity. Together, these measures reveal whether an institution can maintain stability, safety, and continuous improvement in its day-to-day operations.

Equally weighted at 45 percent is the outcome dimension, which directly measures the real-world impact of healthcare services. Indicators include safety performance, service quality, patient satisfaction surveys, positive and negative clinical effects, societal reputation, research outputs and applications, and the effectiveness of integrating innovative resources. Beyond patient outcomes alone, SNQ also examines how research results are cited in international journals, using this as a key measure of knowledge dissemination and global influence.

Through specific and quantifiable indicators, SNQ is able not only to precisely assess the quality performance of healthcare institutions, but also to provide a solid basis for comparison with international standards. As a result, SNQ certification functions not merely as a domestic quality tool, but as a governance framework that can be understood, adopted, and trusted within the global healthcare quality landscape—thereby contributing to quality improvement across borders.

Rigorous Selection Recognizing World-Class Medical Technologies

Under SNQ’s stringent review process, internationally competitive medical technologies have emerged through layers of scrutiny, much like gold revealed through careful panning, demonstrating to the world that Taiwan’s healthcare capabilities are not to be underestimated. Over the past 28 years, 16 medical innovations from Taiwan have been recognized by SNQ as internationally leading. These span fields including liver transplantation, atrial fibrillation ablation, gene therapy for rare diseases, craniofacial reconstruction, AI-powered electrocardiogram systems, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO)–assisted cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and pancreatic cancer treatment.

These achievements reflect not only the technical excellence of Taiwan’s medical community, but also its readiness to contribute as a responsible actor in global healthcare. Innovations such as liver transplantation, atrial fibrillation ablation, and pancreatic cancer treatment have direct potential to benefit patients beyond Taiwan, while AI-based ECG systems readily connect with the global ecosystem of artificial intelligence in medicine. Every certified project is grounded in evidence and holds clear international relevance and adoption value, underscoring SNQ’s global contribution to advancing patient care, medical knowledge, and healthcare system resilience.

Starting from Taiwan, SNQ has grown into more than a symbol of national healthcare quality. It is steadily becoming an important driver of global quality improvement. As safety and quality increasingly form a shared language across healthcare systems worldwide, the SNQ label is poised to help lay a strong and credible foundation for excellence in international healthcare safety and quality.