Center for Health Market Innovations (CHMI)

Here in Indonesia, implementers, funders, policy makers, and researchers from the private sectors, NGOs, and the Government, have been working towards finding effective solutions to improve our under-performing health market. Many projects improving health services for vulnerable populations remain undocumented. A few months back, CHMI's hub at MercyCorps hosted a roundtable to instigate an exchange of innovative ideas and facilitate the creation of partnerships for the next generation of health market innovations. Today, new partnerships among stakeholders following the roundtable event continue to grow. We are pleased to report on some promising examples of people in partnerships creating new solutions that can improve the quality and affordability of health care in Indonesia. (view all the programs we've added to CHMI's database here)

• Agus Riyanto and Suriatmoko of the Wonosobo District Health Office run the Local Area Monitoring and Tracking (LAMAT), program in Wonosobo, Central Java. LAMAT is a government-initiated system that helps document, monitor and track Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health (MNCH) status in a given area, using LAMAT software, Kartini. Software-generated reports give information on antenatal care, obstetric complications, and the nutritional status of pregnant women and newborns in a certain areas - information needed to make informed decisions for precise planning. Previously, data collection and reporting was mostly done by hand. LAMAT is a new, better way to automate data analysis and reporting introduced in more than 20 provinces in Indonesia with support from UNICEF. Read the case study here.

Presenter from LAMAT at roundtable

• Bidan Delima, led by Asmilia Makmur in collaboration with the Ikatan Bidan Indonesia or Indonesian Midwives Association (and supported by USAID) use a social franchise model to improve the performance of midwives, with the goal of improving obstetric care in Indonesia. Asmila stresses that positioning, recruiting, ensuring and monitoring compliance standards is crucial to the program's success. Read more about Bidan Delima in our case study, here.

• Real stories of children facing death with courage and comfort come from Lynna Chandra, Y. Dedy Pradipto and Dr. Edy Setiawan Tehuteru of Rachel House who run a pediatric palliative hospice care program. Founded in 2006, Yayasan Rumah Rachel, or Rachel House (RH) pioneered a new approach to Pediatric Palliative Care in Indonesia concentrating on providing palliative care for children with terminal illnesses such as cancer and HIV, particularly for the poor. Through a process of trial and error, RH has provided pain and symptom management that was otherwise not available for the children of Indonesia. Read the case study on this program here.

A representative from Nokia, left, speaks with a leader of Rachel House, at right

• Prof Dr. Ir. Soegijardjo Soegijoko – one of the founders of BME (Biomedical Engineering) of ITB (Bandung Institute of Technology) is a well-known E-Health and telemedicine pioneer in Indonesia. He is leading the development of a prototype telemedicine system that will conduct remote consultations and diagnostics and facilitate the collection of patient data. Depending on the communications infrastructure available at a specific location—radio, mobile, landline phones, or the Internet—information will be shared between patients at ‘mobile telemedicine units’ and doctors at ‘medical service centers’ through this project, initiated in partnership with Sukabumi government in the West Java highlands. Prof. Soegijoko spoke at our roundtable about the advancements made in tele-diagnosis, open-sourced software health information systems, e-readiness, and a health services SMS center.

• In a related service, Jatis Telecommunication, runs SMS Obat Murah (SMS for low-cost drugs information), a collaboration with Telkomsel, the leading telecommunication firm in the country and LAFAI (Lembaga Anti Fraud Asuransi Indonesia) provides price-comparison between prescribed medicines and its equivalent to give users a wider array of cheaper, available options. Customers send an SMS to 9123 and receive an SMS reply containing the drug name, dose use, type of packaging, and drug prices. For each SMS sent, customers are charged IDR500 (USD 1 cent).

• At our roundtable, Karthik Balasubramanian and Hugo Diba of Nokia presented Nokia Life Tools Healthcare, an SMS-based (icon-led user interface) subscription health information service launched in Indonesia earlier this year. Health Information for Nokia Life Tools is provided by Parents’ Guide magazine and the Faculty of Medicine of Gadjah Mada University, ensuring that Nokia’s clients receive consistent, accurate and up-to-date information from qualified, medical professionals

• Jenny Lim of Nokia and Esther K. Sianipar of World Vision Indonesia presented at our roundtable the joined program of Sponsorship Integrated Applications and Resources (SINAR), which enables fast and effective data collection regarding diseases and provides other medical information.

• Prof. DR. Dr. Aryono D. Pusponegoro, SpB, K.Bd & Trauma, founder of the 118 Foundation, runs Emergency Services and Ambulance Call Center, a partnership between the city, hospitals and other private partners.

• Dr. Syaiful Fatah of Muhammadiyah University in Yogyakarta shared its free teleconference medical consultations which feature video calls and data sharing to facilitate medical consultations.

At our roundtable, MercyCorps Country Director, Sean Granville Ross presented our finished case studies and Dr. Fransiska Erna Mardiananingsih explained how CHMI plans to have an impact in improving quality and affordability of health services for the poor.

Some participants asked whether or not CHMI’s innovative programs will continue to be innovative in the future. I explained that programs will be periodically reassessed using new information on local trends.

Facilitated by Cynthia Maharani, the discussions continued with one of the latest topics in health innovation--the adoption of technology models to improve health services, namely in health informatics and analytics as well as health information through social media and SMS.