Established in 1998, the Centre for Health Policy and Management of the Medical, Public Health, and Nursing Faculty, Gadjah Mada University (PKMK FK-KMK UGM), is a research institution focusing on health policies. PKMK FK-KMK UGM is committed to working alongside the government and public through studies and advocacies for a number of strategic issues such as health financing, health quality, public health issues, and health-related disaster and crisis management. In addition to researching the massive National Healthcare Insurance, PKMK has now become one of the leading centers in Indonesia, with excellence in the health policy and management domain by developing various knowledge and information media regarding health policies and management for the public to access.
PKMK has partnered with international organizations, including the Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), the World Bank, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, various Indonesian Government Ministries and Institutions at the national and subnational level, and private sector organisations, to provide a collaboration platform for health policy researchers. In terms of innovation, PKMK supports the intensive interaction between researchers and policy actors. This much-needed interaction is often hindered by limited time, funds, and other resources. Therefore, PKMK provides a practical and innovative solution to address this challenge by developing the blended learning method, which combines in-person learning and virtual interaction. This enables busy policy and health management experts to participate in policy dialogues without spending much time on travelling.. PKMK utilizes efficient technology to facilitate the effective knowledge translation process at an affordable cost.
Knowledge Management
At the beginning of the pandemic, the clinical management surrounding COVID-19 was extremely limited. Literature was few and far between, and a highly reputable journal even bluntly stated that there was still insufficient knowledge on it. There were several researchers “forced” to present temporary results because people needed the information. The unknown nature of the COVID-19 virus, its spread, effective prevention, and clinical treatment could potentially translate into a failure in managing COVID-19. To avoid this, PKMK FK-KMK UGM, along with various strategic partners from hospital groups, health offices, clinicians, and public health experts, made efforts to come up with innovations and breakthroughs to develop Knowledge Management on COVID-19.
Until now, PKMK has developed and supported 15 websites in management and priority issues. One of them is a digital platform named www.manajemencovid.net, which serves as an individual and organizational learning resource on COVID-19 for health staff. It has information regarding COVID-19 prevention in Indonesia, using the taxonomy concept. Taxonomy means placing something into classifications, in this case, by sources of reference, to enable easier user access. This website contains a myriad of collections, including 160 reports, 294 videos, 102 news articles, and 26 introductory articles up to April 2021.
This website is home to a COVID-19 Management Forum, which is voluntary and open for all health staff. This forum is intended to improve the capability of Indonesia’s healthcare system to manage coronavirus patients, starting from improving knowledge and, sharing science, to applying knowledge to prevent further spread of the pandemic, increase the surge capacity of hospitals and areas to deal with coronavirus, and activate the disaster management system at hospitals and in the healthcare system.
To achieve this, the forum facilitates health staff to discuss and carry out a number of strategic things. This includes discussing the experience of clinicians (doctors and nurses, as well as other health staff) and the clinical management in handling Coronavirus patients; systematically reviewing journal articles; discussing hospitals’ preparedness to deal with Coronavirus patients; and strengthening the healthcare system to face a surge of COVID-19 cases, from primary services to hospitals, across different sectors.
PKMK also created www.sistemkesehatan.net, which is a special knowledge platform discussing the Healthcare System. This website is linked with the Health Crisis Centre owned by the Ministry of Health (MoH) and discusses the Global Healthcare System as a reference of the healthcare system of each country in the world, the National Healthcare System (SKN) in Indonesia, and how the SKN adapts to natural and non-natural disasters. PKMK follows-up the scientific evidence of various evaluation and research activities to reinforce the result of health resilience and preparedness study at the national and subnational level. This is PKMK’s advocacy to influence the government or non-government organizations to realize a national healthcare system that considers risk management, including giving attention to vulnerable groups, rural areas, and people with disabilities who tend to be marginalized, both in normal situations and especially during disasters.
In improving the Quality Management System, PKMK has also formed a quality team, whose duties are to establish quality documents, initiate, monitor, evaluate, and carry out quality improvement efforts as well as develop a report on quality target achievements. Currently, PKMK has been certified and implements a Quality Management System (ISO 9001) and has received recertification in March 2018.
Developing Networks
PKMK has developed an intensive relationship with relevant Ministries and Institutions to influence policy and move towards more effective use of knowledge from its knowledge management. Collaborating with public service providers and the private sector, government agencies, universities, and international organizations, PKMK carries out studies and advocacies, knowledge exchange, and provides suggestions and trainings. This organization is focused on four primary areas, namely health service provision, regulation, health financing, and human resource development. With the establishment of the relationship, one of the PKMK articles regarding health services capacity becomes part of the Lesson Learned Study on Handling COVID-19 in Indonesia published by Bappenas.
Using the momentum of the pandemic, which shows the vulnerability of Indonesia’s health system, PKMK also advocated for an improvement to the National Healthcare Insurance (JKN) policy by engaging decision-makers. This improvement initiative is conducted by developing a policy analysis in the form of a problem stocktaking list (DIM) consisting of three topics: governance, equity, and quality. In the DIM, there are several articles from Law Number 40 Year 2004 on the National Social Security System (SJSN), Law Number 24 Year 2011 on the Social Security Implementing Agency (BPJS) and JKN technical regulation, which have issues and needs to be revised by the Commission IX of the House of Representatives of the Republic of Indonesia (DPR RI) and the government. By developing this document, all problems from the research results were formulated to find the root cause, allowing for options to be recommended whose feasibility was analyzed. Besides developing DIM, PKMK UGM also carried out an advocacy meeting so that articles in DIM that needed to be revised were known and considered by the Commission IX of DPR RI and the government.
Support from Knowledge Sector Initiative
Through KSI’s support in the second year of its Strategic Partnership Grant, PKMK conducted an activity adaptation to support COVID-19 management. As one of the Indonesian Science Institution (LIPI) consortium members studying the National Healthcare System (SKN) during the pandemic, PKMK can provide evidence and study results for subsequent policies. In this framework, PKMK has developed three knowledge management platforms, namely the Healthcare System Dashboard (DASK), manajemencovid.net and sistemkesehatan.net. In the end, it is expected that there will be collaborative work to develop a National Healthcare System that considers the disaster aspect, both natural and non-natural disasters.
