Speaking in a webinar on April 21, Budi said he had been mandated by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to fulfill three critical tasks in the health sector: First, to ensure the successful delivery of important and urgent vaccinations; second, to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic; and third, to transform health service delivery.

Budi said the health sector needed reform so that the nation could achieve its dream of promoting healthy lives and the well-being of its people at all ages. The minister was convinced that with the limited number of doctors and geographical challenges across the country, digital technologies would be very helpful in the delivery of care.

To support the development of a digital health ecosystem, the Health Ministry says it has composed some regulations related to the implementation of information and communications technology (ICT) in the health sector. The regulations include Health Ministerial Regulation No. 20/2019 on the implementation of telemedicine in healthcare facilities and several other regulations being formulated, including a draft regulation on electronic medical records (IMR).

Digital technology plays a vital role in the effective and efficient use of health resources, especially in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Budi says it is now on top of the government’s agenda to optimize the use of health technology to ensure that once the pandemic is over, it can continue to deliver health services, in which patient safety is still the ultimate priority.

With a fast growing online population, Indonesia actually has a huge opportunity to build a sufficient digital health ecosystem. The internet penetration rate in Indonesia stood at 73.7 percent in 2019, up from 64.8 percent in 2018, the Indonesian Internet Providers Association (APJII) revealed in its 2020 survey. More than 95 percent of Indonesian people access the internet through smartphones with mobile data, the survey further says.

The fast growth of Indonesia’s online population clearly lays a solid foundation for the country to accelerate digital health. While digital health technology has made a big move forward during the COVID-19 pandemic, health policies in many countries in the Asia-Pacific region, including Indonesia, in fact could not keep pace with the rise of health technology innovation. In many countries, digital solutions have not been fully integrated into healthcare systems.

Harjit Gill, CEO of the Asia Pacific Medical Technology Association (APACMed), said there had been a massive rise in digital health technology, particularly telehealth and remote patient monitoring. These sorts of technologies are a great enabler for many markets in Asia-Pacific because they give people more effective and efficient healthcare services, she further stressed.

“Many of our markets know access is important not only because of geographical nature but also costs. Digital health can help because digital health solutions are cheaper and faster, and they can reach a wide population. So, for remote care monitoring, if you can find solutions enabled either through mobile phones or any other digital platforms, you can leverage that,” Gill told The Jakarta Post during a phone interview recently.

With digital technology, people can remove the need to travel to seek a healthcare professional, making a positive impact on productivity. But the fact now is that not many countries have succeeded in making digital health massively accessible.

Barriers to the adoption of digital health were discussed in a Dia:gram virtual panel discussion themed “Can Asia Pacific’s digital health policies deliver?”, which was jointly held by the World Editors Forum and Roche Diagnostics on March 31. During the event, Gill and several other medical technology experts shared a concern about poor progress in the development of digital health policies as a major hurdle to the establishment of a digital health ecosystem across Asia and the Pacific.

With the fourth-largest population in the world, Indonesia is among the countries with sufficient capacity to develop digital health technology.

Dewi Muliaty, president director of publicly listed clinical laboratory services provider Prodia Widyahusada, said digital technology could help people to access quality health care more easily. But she also said people’s acceptance of digital health really depended on the competence of users and adaptation from policymakers.

“Unfortunately, many digital players fail to realize this fact and instead, they drive innovations that do not meet customer needs at all,” Dewi said.

Citing an example, Dewi said that currently, there were more than 450,000 mobile apps for health and wellness but only 52 percent of them worked. Meanwhile, about 48 percent of the remainder do not have ratings. Worse, only 5 percent of the apps have more than 100 downloads, while the development of a digital health ecosystem in Indonesia badly needs adequate regulatory and policy support from the government.

Many people in Indonesia live in remote villages, disadvantaged regions and outermost islands. They either have poor knowledge of digital technology or lack access to digital devices. If the government wants balanced access to health care for all with no areas left behind, it has to sufficiently invest in healthcare infrastructure.

Data presented by Dewi highlight the fact that a digital health ecosystem requires not only infrastructure but also a set of regulatory frameworks that can integrate digital health technologies into health systems and make them function well.

Also, it might be a bit difficult for the government to build people’s confidence in digital health unless it can make people feel secure to use digital health services. This is because health data is sensitive and needs to be properly protected.

It may take some time for Indonesia to have a solid digital health ecosystem that can push down the costs of accessing health care and reduce productivity losses caused by health issues. But with Budi’s call for immediate digital transformation in the health sector, at least, we have seen the government’s willingness to implement digital technology that can reach patients, particularly in underserved areas.

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Staff writer at The Jakarta Post

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