Tuesday, October 11, 2022, the Faculty of Public Health (FPH) Universitas Indonesia (UI) together with the Health Informatics Research Cluster (HIRC) FPHUI held an online seminar “SMART Puskesmas: Towards Digitalization of Primary Health Care”. The seminar, which was held online through the Zoom Meeting platform and broadcast live on KS UI’s Youtube channel, was open to the public and attended by 300 participants.
Basically, Indonesia still has to overcome health challenges where most cases of death in the age group of infants, children and the elderly are considered quite high. These cases can actually be prevented, but the threat of the Triple Burden of Disease and the Standar Pelayanan Minimum (SPM) / Minimum Service Standards which are still far from the standards should still be a factor for the difficulty of preventing these problems. Therefore, the role of the Puskesmas as a primary health care facility that adapts to the Standar Pelayanan Minimum (SPM) and reaches all levels of society is very important.
This seminar presented Andri Musrita, S.K.M., M.Epid. from the Directorate of Public Health Governance, Ministry of Health of the Republic of Indonesia, as a guest speaker who presented the policy of primary health care transformation supported by digital transformation. “The focus of primary health care transformation starts from service integration, bringing health services closer to the village and subvillage levels, strengthening health promotion and prevention and resilience, and strengthening Pemantauan Wilayah Setempat / Local Area Monitoring (PWS),” said Andri, in his presentation.
The Chairperson of the Akselerasi Puskesmas Indonesia APKESMI (Indonesian Puskesmas Acceleration), dr. Trisna Setiawan, M.Kes., further explained the results of a survey of Puskesmas conditions in readiness for health digitalization transformation. As many as <50% of Puskesmas do not have access to websites, have few specialized personnel for information data management and health workers sometimes double as IT officers. “Recommendations made include, among others, holding digital training for Puskesmas health workers, financing is charged from the APBN and APBD, and digital transformation is expected to be a space for convenience for reporting systems and improving service quality,” added Dr. Trisna, in his presentation.
On the same occasion Martin Suanta, S.E., M.Si., Director of Family Planning Service Quality Development, National Population and Family Planning Agency (BKKBN) also discussed the demographic bonus which will have a positive impact when the number of qualified productive age population is abundant, thus spurring economic growth. However, optimizing the demographic bonus must be supported by fulfilling nutritional needs, and solving the problem of stunting.
Furthermore, Prof. Dr. Kemal N. Siregar, S.K.M., M.A., Ph.D., Chairman of HIRC FPHUI, initiated SmartPuskesmas which is a program to utilize Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the entire work process of Puskesmas to serve the community in its working area. “This is an idea that still needs development and a paradigm shift is needed to realize SmartPuskesmas. Massive intersectoral collaboration is also needed, starting from the government, academics, practitioners in professional organization groups, and of course the involvement of the beneficiary community, “said Prof. Kemal, in his presentation.
Prof. Kemal also added an explanation of the transformation of Puskesmas as a supporter of the SmartPuskesmas idea, including the functions of care of early-stage disease and disease prevention, active services to visit residents who are still healthy, personalized care for everyone in every age group according to the life cycle and active patient involvement.
SmartPuskesmas is expected to be a solution to strengthen health services that are more affordable, quality, and desirable to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s). (AHS)