Universal Health Coverage: Its Future in Indonesia

Indonesia’s Plan to Digitize the Universal Healthcare System

One of the main issues in Indonesia’s universal health coverage system is insufficient data. The problem is mainly caused by an excessive amount of applications and limitations in regulations of standardization of data exchange.

Over 400 applications developed by the central and local governments make health policies not entirely based on comprehensive data and inefficient health services.

However, the Covid-19 pandemic and technological advancements have effectively pushed the Ministry of Health to immediately transform a universal health coverage system toward an increasingly advanced and fair Indonesian health sector.

The Regulation of the Minister of Health of the Republic of Indonesia (Permenkes RI) No. 21 of 2020 shows a vision to digitize the health sector from the beginning of life in the womb to integrated health services for the elderly.

Efforts to change healthcare development governance include integrating information systems, research, and health development. This digital and universal health coverage transformation is to produce human resources with the capacity to analyze health data and aims to develop data-based policies in each health agency.

The Blueprint for Indonesia’s Digital Health Transformation Strategy 2024 is based on the spirit of realizing a healthy Indonesia in an Indonesia Health Services (IHS) Platform.

The IHS platform is a digital and universal health coverage ecosystem platform that provides connectivity data, analysis, and services to support and integrate various healthcare applications in Indonesia. The IHS platform is built on six fundamental principles:

• Service-Based Platform
• Architectural Standardization and Specifications
• Collaboration Ecosystem of Health Industry Players
• Open API Based on Microservices
• Compliance Through Cohesiveness
• Reciprocal Benefits Through Ease of Service and Integrated Information

Digitizing the healthcare industry at the national and regional levels is not easy, requiring proper planning. The government has mapped out the health technology transformation roadmap for a clearer view.

Divided into three significant steps, a brief explanation of it is as follows:

• Health Data Integration and Development: The systems are developed to improve health policies based on accurate, up-to-date, and complete data.
• Development of Health Service Applications: with three main activities, the output expected of this area is to make health services in facilities very efficient to speed up the process with maximum results in every line, i.e., labs, clinics, hospitals, pharmacies, etc.
• Health Technology Ecosystem Development: this program focuses on creating collaborations and an ecosystem of health-based innovations between governments, universities, industries, and the public.

Current Implementation of Digital Universal Health Coverage System

Covid-19 as a Catalyst for the Digital Revolution

Indonesia’s digital transformation office has used the Covid-19 pandemic to open up a path to move the country towards a digital revolution in the healthcare sector. The massive adoption of technology in recent years has pushed the Indonesian Health Ministry to use its vast digital footprint over the years.

This pool of medical records data centralizes into a single source where the examiners can access a patient’s entire medical history, which would benefit the patients, healthcare services, and policymakers.

The Indonesia Health Services (IHS) Platform will serve as a digital ecosystem that provides data connectivity, analysis, and services to integrate Indonesian healthcare applications fully.

PeduliLindungi is the most recently developed healthcare platform that stores the country’s health data. Users can access individual health reports and personalized recommendations. State-of-the-art cybersecurity standards guarantee user protection.

The Demand for Telemedicine

With the rise of employees continuing the WFH scenario, keeping them healthy is one of the main concerns that need to be a company’s focus. A healthy employee can produce the highest productivity and can work optimally.

It is vital to support employees in managing their mental and physical health, and digital health services play a significant role. Indonesian firms have started to see this as a core need and have worked with some digital healthcare companies to arrange universal healthcare programs for their employees.

Good Doctor, a technology-based healthcare provider with a vision of ‘One Doctor for One Family in Indonesia,’ is one of those companies that work together with businesses looking to focus on their employee’s state of health.

The collaboration between companies and Good Doctor aligns with the sixth pillar of the Health System Transformation Strategy set by the Indonesian Health Ministry, which focuses on universal health coverage in Indonesia by digitizing the healthcare industry.

Good Doctor helps accelerate digital health technologies for Indonesians to make smarter health decisions backed by data with more corporate partners.

Open Opportunities for Investment in Digital Healthcare

When talking about Indonesia’s Health Tech Ecosystem, the Ministry wants to focus on developing the country’s health tech ecosystem. It is a tech ecosystem with collaboration and universal healthcare innovation between government, universities, the public, and industries.

Three programs support this priority:

1. Expansion of Telemedicine Technology
2. Development of Health Tech Product Innovation System
3. Health Biotech Research Integration

Investing in Indonesia’s universal healthcare system requires business licenses and permits.

Indonesia’s G20 summit scheduled for October 2022 has a unifying message: ‘Recover Together, Recover Stronger.’ The complete digital transformation of the economy and universal healthcare are topics President Jokowi plans to focus on. Moving forward, 5G technology is key to this development.

As one of the most disrupted industries affected by the pandemic, 5G technology can help in the digital transformation of the healthcare industry after having to innovate at a very rapid rate. Foreign investors dealing in 5G development can use this future multi-trillion dollar industry as projected by PwC.

On its way to being ASEAN’s digital center, Indonesia’s 5G-driven services and corporations could contribute to around 10% of the national GDP by 2030 and help create 22 million new jobs.

Establishing a foreign body in Indonesia can be pretty tricky. Companies are encouraged to use professional services to figure out how to set up a foreign-owned company in Indonesia.

With a solid blueprint in place, complete with plans and programs set to transform the country’s health care coverage at this rate and with the right partners, Indonesia is well on its way to providing universal and digitized healthcare systems for all of Indonesia.