Ministry Of Health Develops Robotic Remote Surgery At RSHS Bandung And RSUP Dr Sardjito

Screenshot of the Robotic Remote Surgery Seminar held by the Indonesian Ministry of Health. (Photo: ANTARA)

JAKARTA - The Indonesian Ministry of Health has developed the Indonesian Robotic Surgery Center at Dr Hasan Sadikin Hospital (RSHS) Bandung and Dr Sardjito Hospital Yogyakarta to facilitate the development of remote surgical services.

"The robotic project is a multi-year project that aims to improve service access and quality of health services for inaccessible areas in Indonesia. The strategy is to use Robotic Telesurgery as part of the telemedicine program," said Special Staff of the Minister of Health for the Resilience of the Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Industries Prof. Laksono Trisnantoro quoted by Antara, Sunday, June 26.

He said the facility started with the initiation of business matching at the Health Business Forum, a multi-year and multi-stakeholder project design for Robotic Telesurgery 2021-2024 was made.

The project is not only of economic value, but also has educational value.

"With access to knowledge transfer and technology transfer, domestic industries are also able to produce their tools and spare parts domestically with a sufficient Domestic Component Level (TKDN)," he said.

Laksono said that the robotic telesurgery program is currently in the training stage for surgeons with a Virtual Reality (VR) Robotic Telesurgery Simulator.

"The robotic surgery training curriculum will be certified and accredited, so that in the future robotic surgery expertise is recommended to be included in the surgeon specialist education curriculum in Indonesia," said Laksono.

The program supports the transformation of health technology-based secondary services through remote surgery or surgical services.

In the future, this technology can reduce referral patients to Type A Hospitals or National Referral Hospitals with remote surgical services.

Robotic Surgeon at RSUP Dr. Hasan Sadikin Bandung Reno Rudiman said the robotic telesurgery program at Hasan Sadikin Hospital has been running since 2020.

Robotic Sina, for example, the surgical robot at Hasan Sadikin Hospital performs surgery using modular instruments from each tower, so that its movements are more flexible.

"The instrument used by Sina has a size of 5 mm, so the wounds caused by surgery can be more minimally invasive," said Reno.

From the financing scheme, said Reno, it is considered more economical for the proposed financing for the National Health Insurance (JKN) program.

"Moreover, this program will transfer technology, where the instruments can later be produced by domestic industries," he said.

The robotic telesurgery project is a concrete example of the transformation of the health system initiated by the Indonesian Ministry of Health, which consists of a combination of four pillars, namely Transformation of Referral Services, Health Financing, Healthcare Industry Resilience, and Health Human Resources.

Reno added that policy recommendations to implement the robotic telesurgery program in Indonesia require a big commitment from all stakeholders, especially the Ministry of Health, hospitals, universities and the state-owned medical device industry.