Health Startup Challenges in Providing Ease of Access Through Technology

One sector that is still difficult to "disturb" technology is health. The rigid methods that are applied and the regulations that are made are not yet ready, making it difficult for digital startups to target. In this week's #Tuesdaystartup session, Co-founder & CEO Medigo Harya Bimo tries to unravel the best problems and solutions related to the health sector in Indonesia for startup activists.

Medical record access issues

One of the issues in the Indonesian health sector is that it is difficult for patients to transfer medical records to different hospitals. If one patient is already registered in a hospital, there is no network or access that other hospitals can take, when the patient decides to transfer their health services.

According to Harya, this is a burden for startups or technology companies that are trying to solve the problem. Indonesia still refers to the applicable regulations, in which it is clearly written, if the hospital leaks a patient's medical record intentionally, it can be subject to criminal penalties.

The regulations are still tight, making it difficult for medical record access to be openly accessible in the network of health units, which currently number around 2800 hospitals and 18 thousand health clinics.

"This is different from countries such as the United States, Britain, or Singapore which have implemented open access for all hospitals to clinics to see patients' medical records when they decide to seek treatment at various existing hospitals and clinics," said Harya.

Data integration and processing issues

Another challenge is that the needs of patients, insurance companies, and hospitals are still not connected. If patients want to seek treatment and apply for insurance payments, all of these processes are mostly still implemented manually.

Likewise with prescription issues to information issued by doctors to hospitals and patients. Everything is still in written form and not much has been done digitally.

"In Indonesia there are still many doctors who write prescriptions and others by hand, because there is an understanding that is believed by the medical community and other related parties about the conventional process. While in other countries all doctors in hospitals have started to familiarize patients with giving prescriptions manually. digital," said Harya.

Opportunities for healthcare startups in Indonesia

Although it is still difficult, startups like Medigo, previously known as Instigator, are now starting to explore opportunities to become operators. With the SaaS platform on offer, they offer a technological approach to hospitals and clinics in Indonesia.

In addition, there are other potentials that startups can also present, including online consultation services to ordering/delivering prescriptions from hospitals. For the rest, Harya suggested establishing partnerships with related ecosystems such as BPJS to adopt technology into their internal systems.