History of Yuanshan Veterans Hospital : originated from the Home of Yuanshan Veterans Hospital which was established on April 1, 1955, and operated under the subordination of Taiwan Provincial Government. On July 1, 1957, it was transformed to the Yuanshan Tuberculosis Hospital until July 1, 1958,  it was restructured to become Yuanshan Veterans Hospital under the governance of the Veterans Affairs Commission. It is located  in Yuanshan Township in the center of the Lanyang Plain of Yilan County occupying 5.063 hectares of land. In the past, its patients were mainly veterans and their dependents, suffering from chronic diseases, but currently it extends its outpatient and inpatient  services to the public under the coverage of National Health Insurance. It provides the people in Yilan county with more convenient medical care. It also actively shoulder the responsibility of  patient referrals to medical centers or veteran’s general hospitals, and veterans’ homes, and promotes improved medical services for the county inhabitants in the hope of shortening the distance of medical quality between urban and rural areas. In order to offer comprehensive medical care, the hospital is currently modernizing its wards and renewing its equipments in an attempt to enhance its medial service quality. As ratified by the Department of Health of the Executive Yuan, the hospital is, for the time being, graded as a "regional hospital" and is now aggressively preparing for appraise to become a "regional teaching hospital".

Organization:
In organization, the hospital has a superintendent and a deputy superintendent to govern 10 medical departments, and 7 offices as sections, i.e.. internal medicine department , surgery department , obstetrics and gynecology department , pediatrics department , psychiatry department , neurology department, rehabilitation department , dentistry department , nursing department , pharmacy department , medical administration office, counseling and social work office, secretariat, personnel office, accounting office, civil service ethics office, and nutrition room (section).

Current staff:
25 physicians, 118 nurses, 34 technicians, 28 various administrators, 83 manual workers, totaling 288 in number

Personnel qualifications: In addition to standing hospital crew employed observant of qualification standards stipulated by Personnel Bureau, the hospital also employs qualified and outstanding professionals under contract to reinforce quantity and quality of work. The physicians, pharmacists, registered nurses and various technicians recruited by the hospital are expertise, some of whom have lecturer accreditation or are studying for a master degree. The hospital’s staff take pride strongly in their educational backgrounds and signal work experiences to render the best service to patients.

Sickbed allocation for various departments:
Currently the number of health insurance sickbeds is 573, of which 128 for acute diseases, 170 for chronic, diseases 275 for psychiatric disorders and 16 for specific needs.

Medical departments internal medicine, surgery, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, psychiatry, rehabilitation, neurology, family medicine, radiology, orthopedics, anesthesiology, dentistry and traditional Chinese medicine.

Current service direction:
For more than four decades, due to, social demands and needs, the hospital has mainly focused its work on the treatment of acute and chronic diseases. Besides providing medical services, living care of patients and disposal of deceases are all within the realm of hospital’s service. Its operation of medical care is similar to that of other official and private hospitals. By the same token helping chronic inpatients rehabilitate their physical fitness and paralyzed patients recover their limb functions, the hospital also takes care of their daily lives and psychological adaptation.

The hospital is some 20 km from downtown Yilan. Even though there are exclusive vehicles from the nearby military garrison to deliver veterans and their dependents to the hospital for seeking medical core, the transportation providing does not always meet the actual need, particularly in critical situations. Under such a circumstance, an affiliated downtown outpatient clinic for the convenience of patient was set up in November 2002, which is located on Linshen Road, Yilan. By doing so, medical instruments, staff, and resources could be more widely and effectively used, to fulfill the government’s good will for caring of its people.

Free registration for disadvantaged minorities:
A free registration is applied to veterans as well as soldiers and their dependants, the disabled, low-income households (with certificate documents), critically injured patients, persons on welfare and seniors aged 65 or beyond. Due to this practice, the hospital’s annual income is decreased by approximately NT$800,000, but we deem worthy under the government’s benevolent policy extending care to the disadvantaged,

To service the public, the hospital provides 7 round-trip runs of free transportation between the hospital and its downtown clinic on a daily basis. This benefit has been well received by the public.

Upon enforcement of national health insurance, the hospital has strengthened its care to patients and provides post-treatment services.A taskforce has been appointed to address the issues of discharge and planning, including community health services, patient care and tracking after discharge, satisfaction surveys, establishment of channels for lodgement of complaints, and giving suggestions regarding continued treatments and referrals, to enhance the quality of hospital’s medical service.

Currently, the hospital has recruited specialty physicians who have received complete training at Taipei Veterans General Hospital. Moreover, the hospital has also enlisted the help of the Wanfang Hospital, Yilan Hospital, and Su-ao Veterans Hospital by sending their physicians to the hospital for offering special outpatient services.

The direction for the hospital to move forward:
The circumscription of the hospital’s affiliated outpatient clinic located on Taishan Road, Yilan was too small to have a parking lot. Due to the increasing number of outpatients over the years, many patients who seeked medical treatment had to be referred to the hospital clinic, resulting in their inconvenience, and causing a large number of  lodgments of complaints regarding the lack of space, Since the clinic was a rental belonging, there was no way to build an annex for expansion. Therefore, we began the construction of a new outpatient building on a lot adjacent to a forest conservation in August 2001, which was completed on November 13, 2002. Since then, we could discharge our medical services of high quality in comfortable, more spacious and professed medical environment for the patients in the Lanyang region. .

Due to the aged people in the Yilan region already reaching 10% of population, the hospital will also focus its attention to geriatrics. Apart from the existing system of diabetic care, the hospital will have regional medical practitioners joining its neurology department and set up a Sibei neurological care system. In the near future, there will be a stroke ICU, respiratory therapy ward, nursing home at own expense, and beds for terminal care added to the hospital. The hospital may then have departments of neurology, metabolism, family medicine, hematology, and radiology as inclusion.

Almost 400 patients in the Yilan region received spinal surgery performed by Dr. Gao Han-Zhong, the chief of orthopedics. Therefore, in the future, we will pay more attention to treatment of bone diseases. In addition, we will also stress on urological and colorectal surgeries, which often occur to the elderly. As to obstetrics and gynecology, we will emphasize on gynecological surgery of cancers and the treatment of menopause related diseases.

The hospital currently has 275 psychiatric beds with occupation rate more than 95%, which makes the hospital a medical institute admitting the highest number of psychiatric patients. In addition to the beds for acute and chronic sickness, in the future, the hospital will develop daytime care, serrice for  industrial diseases, and socio welfare service for the disabled (e.g. social welfare beds), with combined efforts of medical administration and social administration to turn the hospital into a signal psychiatric center in Yilan Area.

The hospital plans to join the network of medical integration system of mountainous region of Yilan Country in order to provide the people in remote areas, such as Datung Township, with integrated medical services.

Conclusion:
Strengthening the array of physicians, reinforcement of medical quality, advancement of medical equipments, and improvement of service quality are the goals of development of the hospital. Based on the concept of benevolent administration what is got from the people, pat it back to the people, the hospital is devoted to modernization and communization. It is our sincere wish orentrenty that with the consideration of National Health Insurance, the hospital with its affiliated clinic, will become a dependable, trustworthy medical institution in the Lanyang region with its recent and future improvements.