Telemedicine Becomes Indonesia's Advantage In ASEAN

Illustration. (Photo: Unsplash)

JAKARTA - Technology observer and Executive Director of the Indonesia ICT Institute Heru Sutadi said telemedicine is Indonesia's advantage that can be utilized by countries in the Southeast Asia region.

"I think this is indeed one of Indonesia's advantages and actually if it is properly drafted, it can also be used in other countries in the Southeast Asia region," said Heru, quoted from Antara, Saturday, June 24.

Through Indonesia's chairmanship in ASEAN this year, Heru also considered that every country in Southeast Asia could exchange ideas about the development of telemedicine in the region.

"We can see how other countries develop telemedicine and what we look like, it could fill each other out," said Heru.

"For example, other countries may not develop much, Indonesia can become a leader to share how to develop telemedicine," he continued.

Heru believes that the development of massive digital technology in Indonesia can currently be proposed in ASEAN Chairship to advance the Southeast Asia region.

"This is a very fitting momentum for Indonesia because these years are the phases of how we transform digital for a more prosperous life of society," he said.

Regarding telemedicine, Heru said the pandemic shows that this technology has become Indonesia's advantage to answer challenges at that time, such as providing online health consultation services, sending drugs to patients, to registering vaccines.

However, after the current pandemic, when the community movement returned to its original state, Heru said there needed to be creative ideas so that telemedicine continues to develop and can be utilized, especially by people in areas far from urban areas where major hospitals were established.

"Indonesia's TYPes are almost the same as other Southeast Asian countries such as the Philippines, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand. We can transmit this about the development of telemedicine in Indonesia until finally other countries can also adopt or maybe also fill each other out," said Heru.

The main challenge in developing telemedicine, according to Heru, is information and communication technology infrastructure which still has to be improved until the availability of doctors.

"Other countries have better infrastructure, yes. Well, maybe other countries such as Cambodia, Laos, who face the same challenges, we can share how to answer this challenge to be able to support telemedicine," he said.