A new toolkit has been developed to ensure that digital health innovations in Indonesia truly meet the needs of patients and communities, including those living in remote areas.
Monash University researchers along with nine senior Indonesian health experts have collaborated to develop a digital health innovation tool.
The new tool, VDHIC or the Value-Based Digital Health Innovation Canvas, is intended to ensure that digital health innovation in Indonesia delivers real benefits to communities, including those living in remote areas.
Professor Juliana Sutanto, a researcher at Monash University's Faculty of Information Technology who led the collaboration, said the VDHIC changes how digital health innovation is approached in Indonesia. "We start with what the challenge is, what the need is, rather than starting with the technology," Prof. Sutanto said.
For example, Prof. Sutanto said that the tool could be used to design solutions to communication gaps between health workers and the families of premature babies after discharge from the hospital.
Ahmad Hidayat, Chair of the SATUSEHAT Technical Working Group at Indonesia's Ministry of Health and one of nine participants in the programme, explained another example: how digital solutions could support stroke patient care by getting critical information to hospitals before the patient arrives.
The development of the VDHIC was funded by the Australian Government through the Australia Awards Fellowship programme. The process took four months and included hospital visits in Melbourne as well as visits by the Monash team to Indonesia.
The VDHIC has five core goals: population health, patient experience, health worker satisfaction, cost efficiency, and health equity. Not every innovation needs to cover all five, Prof. Sutanto said, but what matters most is that innovation is grounded in real value for communities.
Health equity is a particular focus. Hidayat said the availability of technology and internet connectivity in remote, outermost, and disadvantaged regions must be considered in every innovation. "We have to see Indonesia as a vast archipelago. We have to take all of that into account," Hidayat said.
Data security and personal data protection have also been built into the VDHIC from the outset through its governance framework, Hidayat added.
Indonesia's Ministry of Health is currently running three sandbox programmes: the Innovation Sandbox, the Industrial Sandbox, and the Regulatory Sandbox. The VDHIC will be used as a supporting tool within these programmes.
Listen to the full conversation with Professor Juliana Sutanto and Mr Ahmad Hidayat in the podcast.
