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7 ways Indonesia could boost its healthcare supply chain INDONESIA
T
he problems in Indonesia’s healthcare system have become more obvious as facilities struggled to obtain the supplies required amidst the surging pandemic. Thus, the Australia-Indonesia Centre (AIC) has highlighted seven ways for the country to build a “smart” healthcare supply chain. The first is to develop an end-to-end digital platform that provides a central view from supply to procurement. Digital supply chains are currently fragmented, with different departments in the same hospitals using different systems. Further, the applications in use appear to be rudimentary and tend not to be integrated. All stakeholders are urged to integrate through a single platform that enables transparent operations and centralised or joint procurement. All hospitals can view it in realtime for planning and demand management. The second is to have centralised logistics for all government hospitals. AIC found that hospitals in the country currently conduct
their own procurement and manage logistics, which is not the most efficient alternative. Third: ramp up the flexibility of the e-catalogue. The inflexibility of government procedures and bureaucratic processes has been hampering the effectiveness of hospitals’ supply chains, AIC said. Fourth is to make sure there are effective quality and safety monitoring functions. Centrally managed standards continue to be implemented, even when greater flexibility and autonomy for procurement is facilitated in urgent cases. Fifth, the system must encourage standardisation and interoperability, which could also facilitate resource-sharing across hospitals. “Standardisation of supply chain practices and interoperability of digital technologies across the healthcare sector would facilitate better integration and learning, with hospitals better able to share knowledge. ,” AIC said. Sixth, hospitals must ensure transparency
Indonesia must build a “smart” healthcare supply chain
and traceability are built into all-digital supply chain solutions to reduce fraud and ensure accountability. “Electronic tagging, robust supplier registration processes, and better traceability of the upstream supply chain via systems integration can eradicate counterfeit medication,” the report stated. Last is to develop data analytics capability, which is critical for effective supply chain management in all hospitals. “Current analytics seem to be limited to forecasting at best. Real-time solutions, such as real-time streaming analytics, need to be part of the digital solution,” AIC said.
HEALTHCARE ASIA
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