Indonesia's healthcare sector has a number of tasks to complete in its digital transformation quest, according to a presentation by Setiaji, chief of the Digital Transformation Office under Indonesia's Ministry of Health.

He was speaking at the HIMSS Indonesian Digital Transformation Symposium held on 25 May 2022 in Jakarta.

The DTO is behind PeduliLindungi, the country's official COVID-19 tracking smartphone application, and is now responsible for leading the country's digital health transformation, such as integrating national health data. 

"Merely input officers"

Setiaji said there were currently more non-electronic medical records than digitised ones stored in Indonesian hospitals and community health centres – the latter locally known as puskesmas – making it challenging to prepare the country's digital medical records.

He said his office was preparing a health informatics curriculum so that health workers in the more rural regions of the country would want to utilise the data – instead of only knowing how to use the technology that helps obtain such data.

"[Health workers] are now merely input officers, but they are not designed to be able to analyse data to enhance care and also make improvements to current programmes, such as for stunting and TB," he told the symposium.

He said the ministry would integrate and standardise the codes of health facilities and doctors across the country.

Future plans

Setiaji said the health ministry has been preparing nine references for data integration, which would need a certain degree of standardisation.

He also said they were testing the Indonesia Health Services (IHS) digital platform – connected to the country's puskesmas, pharmacies and laboratories – to integrate around 60,000 such facilities. This year's target would be to achieve the 8,000 mark. He also hopes the IHS will kick off in July.

Meanwhile, Setiaji added that the target by 2024 would be at least 2 percent of hospitals nationwide achieving a level 7 for the HIMSS maturity model assessments.

"Together with HIMSS, we will also start preparing for the adoption of EMRAM; whether [we] want the US version, want an Indonesian version, it is being prepared," he said.