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Insight: Evolving Indonesia’s healthcare delivery and data strategy
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A person opens the Satusehat Mobile app in Pontianak, West Kalimantan, in this file photo. The Health Ministry officially transformed the PeduliLindungi app into SatuSehat Mobile, which users can use to monitor their own state of health. (Courtesy of Antara/Jessica Helena Wuysang)
I
ndonesia generates petabytes of health data every day. This consists of thousands of medical records, medicine logistics data and patients’ medicine prescriptions. However, these petabytes of data have not been integrated and digitally recorded.
Today, Indonesia has about 2,500 hospitals with a bed ratio of 1.2 beds per 1,000 people and a ratio of 0.38 doctors for every 1,000 people. This is far below the World Health Organization’s recommendation of one doctor for every 600 people. The condition of our healthcare system is one of the lowest in Southeast Asia.
In the health sector, a rapid demographic change both increases the potential demand for health services and the government’s healthcare expenditures and decreases the available supply of manpower to deliver care. It is urgent for Indonesia to prioritize quality and access for patients, while controlling and managing efficient individuals’ healthcare expenses.
At the same time, based on data from the Communications and Information Ministry in January 2021, Indonesia has huge digital potential as it had 202.4 million internet users, with this number increasing.
We see opportunities in these huge challenges, not only for us in the Health Ministry, but also for private stakeholders.
Catalyst for innovations
The Digital Transformation Office (DTO), a unit under the Health Ministry, aims to tackle the health issues above and the distribution of healthcare resources through technology. It is just over two years old and has been dubbed the nation’s “catalyst for healthcare innovations” by Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin.
