Ministry of Health Transforms Health Services with Data-driven App Used by 102 million Indonesians
60,000 health services to integrate data
102 million users of the PeduliLindungi health app
160+ staff delivering end-to-end digital transformation
The Ministry of Health (Indonesia) is responsible for protecting and improving public health nationally through implementing policies, setting standards, and fostering community empowerment to equitably provide quality health care services.
Across Indonesia, and in health systems globally, the rapid rise of e-health, connected devices, and digital applications has created a major challenge for efficiently and securely managing data and integrating systems.
While digital transformation was already well underway throughout Indonesia’s health sector, the global COVID-19 crisis highlighted the urgency to dramatically increase the capacity, resilience, and flexibility of the health system using data and technology.
During the crisis, there was a shortage of medication and supply as well as the lack of hospital resources (e.g., beds, doctors) which had a severe impact on public health and had threatened to overwhelm the health systems.
In response, Indonesia, through the Ministry of Health, established a dedicated Digital Transformation Office (DTO) with a mission to transform healthcare delivery in Indonesia, appointing Setiaji as Chief.
The DTO was formed to help drive the pandemic response in the short term, as well as accelerate the ongoing digital transformation program with a focus on using data to support policy analysis in the Ministry of Health.
With data at the heart of the long-term solution, Tableau has become an important technology partner, as Setiaji explains: “The ministry is committed to developing policies using data based evidence. With so many applications already running, there is an enormous quantity of data and raw information available.”
Tableau helped the Ministry of Health manage data related to COVID-19 in near real-time including confirmed case records, vaccination, and citizen mobility. This data was beneficial for policy making during the crisis and made available to the public through interactive data visualization.
A key challenge is how to process, integrate, and analyze huge volumes of data into intuitive reports and actionable insights. This requires intelligent data management, and a critical business intelligence tool for us is Tableau.
Transforming digital health across Indonesia
To create significant and sustainable innovation, the Ministry of Health understands the need to collaborate with all industry stakeholders to build a platform that connects data and systems centrally across the national health ecosystem.
With ~60,000 health services nationally, including hundreds of government-owned providers, there are countless fragmented systems and databases across the ecosystem that require standardization and integration. It’s a significant undertaking for Setiaji and his team.
“Demonstrating the wide scope and importance of the initiative, our team has grown to approximately 160 employees. Operating like a startup with the backing of the Government, we move fast to help support and drive the digital vision of the ministry.”
PeduliLindungi: One healthcare platform for society
A foundational step in the transformation was the PeduliLindungi COVID-19 contact tracing app and website app which was deployed in the midst of the pandemic.
By securely integrating data from multiple sources, it helped the public protect their health with features including QR code scanning, digital screening, alerts, test results, vaccine tickets, real-time hospital bed availability, telemedicine services, and digital vaccine certificates.
Tableau was integral in developing several important features within the PeduliLindungi app. We used it to ensure accurate, transparent and complete data, eliminating gaps and security vulnerabilities.
The DTO used Tableau to speed up the development of its products and needed only 1-2 weeks time to deliver these to the market depending on the complexity of the data and dashboard.
For example, the Tableau platform was used to deliver four mission-critical dashboards:
Vaccine Availability
This feature made it quick and simple for Indonesians to access the national vaccine program. It also enabled the Government to monitor and optimize delivery rates. Because of technology, supported by relevant stakeholders from regulators and health workers in the field, in the crisis time to boost vaccination rate from June to December 2021, Ministry of Health achieved up to 2 million vaccination per day and the average vaccination rate increased up to 1 million per day.
COVID-19 Situation Assessment
This real-time dashboard assessed the level of community activity restrictions in each region to help people respond to outbreaks, and determine where further intervention was needed.
Comorbid Data on Elderly Patients
This report collated information on vulnerable patients who had COVID-19 on top of existing conditions, to prioritize health care responses to reduce severe illness and deaths.
Public Areas and Transport Monitoring
This color-coded visualization dashboard monitored user activity and public health protocol compliance during the pandemic.
Uncompromising data privacy, security and control
When handling sensitive and personal health data of patients and providers, there is no room for compromise on protection. The Indonesian health care platform requires strict technical and operational processes to meet relevant HIPAA regulations and ISO certifications.
Trusted by enterprises globally with robust data protections built in, Tableau streamlines data governance, security and compliance across the analytics lifecycle to provide a trusted environment.
“Our most important role is to continue to develop a platform capable of integrating data from the 60,000+ health services right across the ecosystem nationally,” explains Setiaji.
Beyond our own data, to make the ecosystem work we need secure access to data across institutions like hospitals and service providers. Tableau’s security features give us the trusted environment we need to innovate with peace of mind.
Building a data culture beyond the pandemic
“With the shifting status of COVID-19 from pandemic to endemic and beyond, it’s time for us to refocus on health transformation for the betterment of Indonesia more broadly,” says Setiaji.
“The pandemic has accelerated the appetite for digital transformation in health, and it’s one of our key national agenda items. The public and healthcare professionals are more open than ever to embrace change, and we have the technology widely available to make it happen,” he said.
The widely used PeduliLindungi application is evolving into a general health solution that stores personal electronic medical records for all Indonesians based on their consents. Users can access their health reports and get personalized recommendations to maintain optimal health.
Having centralized data will also enable comprehensive health data to inform policy analysis and improve delivery of quality health services, products and medicines across the supply chain.
During the pandemic supply shortages, the use of data has helped the Ministry of Health to monitor the availability of medications and supplies while ensuring those were accessible to people in need.
“It is also important that we continue to educate and prepare our leaders, team and health workers to improve their data literacy and understanding of how technology can deliver better outcomes for everyone,” concluded Setiaji.