On New Year's Day 2004 the Bureau of National Health Insurance (BNHI) began nationwide use of IC health cards, retiring the paper health cards after eight years of successful use. The BNHI has announced that this program will make Taiwan the world's first country to use IC cards for information technology in healthcare.
二○○四年元旦起，中央健保局開始全面使用健保 IC 卡，已經沿用八年多的健保紙卡功成身退，同時宣告台灣成為世界第一個以 IC 卡進行醫療資訊化的國家。