“I don’t want to reinvent the wheel, so that’s the reason why I came to the ACGME,” said Indonesia’s Minister of Health Budi Gunadi Sadikin, who is currently leading the ambitious Health System Transformation for the fourth most populous country in the world.
ACGME Global Services had the opportunity to speak to him in Jakarta, Indonesia, during a July 2024 visit to discuss the ongoing collaboration between Global Services and Indonesia’s Ministry of Health, to gain his perspective on his vision for his country’s health system. This is a brief recap of the conversation; the full recording of this interview is available on Learn with ACGME Global Services, the digital learning platform for Global Services.
Transforming Health Care, Changing Cultures, Embracing Technology
Indonesia currently only has one doctor for every 2000 people, compared to the average lower-middle income country of one per 1000, Minister Sadikin said. This is even more dramatic among specialists, as the rate of specialists production is roughly 7-8 percent of the US, he added, stressing the need to “accelerate the education to produce more specialists.”
However, the growth of producing specialists must not compromise quality. “I want to make sure that they have a very high standard and also very focused on patient safety and that is, again, the reason I come to the ACGME,” said Minister Sadikin.
He is also working to change the culture of doctors in Indonesia, to promote teamwork across the range of health care specialists from other physicians to nurses to technical support providers. “We are always working in a silo, that is the complaint I receive from many patients,” Minister Sadikin said.
The Health System Transformation has also embraced technological advances. For instance, the country has embarked on a rapid digitization program for medical records, “So once you do have a [neonatal] screening, it goes to our central database and will send a WhatsApp messages to the mothers of the babies and the fathers,” he said. Activities are also underway to facilitate reaching over 17,000 islands over a vast area of nearly 2 million square kilometers.
Vision for the Future
The health minister, in pursuing this large-scale Transformation, is seeking to apply his vision for the future of Indonesia’s health sector, one that serves the public, reaches (or exceeds) the quality of its international peers, and able to fully participate in the glocalized health care space.
Minister Sadikin said one of the first targets is to produce physicians in Indonesia that would compare favorably to those trained elsewhere, so that hospitals in Dubai, London, and elsewhere would say “we love to have Indonesian doctors coming in…and the quality of education there is the same or even better than we have in this country.”
His second target is to open up Indonesia for the other facet of glocalization, as a venue overseas physicians would want to train. “Doctors from developed countries like New Zealand who don’t have enough patients, if they want to practice, they come to our hospitals,” he said, adding it is an “opportunity to do real hands-on practice.”
Minister Sadikin is aware of the challenges he faces with the Health System Transformation, from internal resistance to financial restraints. As a public servant, he reminds all stakeholders, including those resistant to change, that their responsibility is serving the public good.
Why the ACGME
Minister Sadikin also quickly spoke about why the Ministry of Health ultimately decided to work with the ACGME, having explored other major collaboration partners around the world. “To my surprise, I really do admire the ACGME because you are not only doing it, you know, for something that you like to do it, but you have a passion to increase the quality of healthcare services, public healthcare services, not only in the United States but in the whole world,” he said.
Through this series, The ACGME and Global Health seeks to engage the global medical and health care communities in conversations on challenges facing global health that transcends borders. The goal of this content series is to provoke discussion about issues that concern the global PGME community, enabling critical conversation that engages with stakeholders across borders, disciplines, and perspectives. This post includes input from ACGME and public health leaders from recent interviews and presentations.
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