Abstract 

Mental health has always been a goal pursued by society; however, its definition remains quite vague. According to estimates from the World Health Organization, about 15% of the population is mentally healthy, 20% have mental disorders, and approximately 60% fall into a subhealthy category. Thus, the population needing mental health support is very large.

To address such a vast market, the digitization of mental health is a crucial component. Currently, most mental health services are delivered via mobile apps. This method has the advantage of quickly serving a large number of people, offering convenience and privacy. However, there are many challenges in this process. For instance, many mental health assessments involve both subjective and objective measures, but mobile apps typically provide only subjective assessments without objective evaluations.

Future developments should include:

• Objective assessment methods, such as online evaluations.
• Digital psychiatric therapies. The most commonly used and mature technology at present is Virtual Reality (VR), which also holds significant potential to replace traditional psychological treatments in the future.
• In summary, digital mental health is still in its early stages. How to appropriately integrate digital technology with clinical needs and find suitable service models will be the key to success.
   

Biography 

Professor Yuan-Hwa Chou graduated from Taiwan's National Defense Medical Center in 1988 and then entered the Institute of Pharmacology to engage in basic pharmacology research for two years. In 1996, he conducted scholarly visits at the University of Toronto, and from 1997 to 2001, he was in Sweden, where he earned a PhD in Clinical Neuroscience from the Karolinska Institutet. Since then, he has been involved in research on brain imaging in psychiatry. In addition to serving as the Secretary-General and Standing Committee member of the Taiwan Psychiatric Association and as Secretary-General of the Asian Psychiatric Association, he expanded into AI hospital management and established the Smart Hospital Management Center in 2016. Last year, he joined the Psychiatry Department at Taichung Veterans General Hospital as the director and simultaneously began planning a digital mental health center.