Telemedicine in Pandemic Times in Indonesia: Healthcare Professional's Perspective

Introduction

In the last decade, telemedicine is becoming more popular, including electronic health records, illness risk assessments, online consultations, and electronic pharmaceuticals (Vajjhala 2021; Eappen 2022). Because of the rapid growth of the information society (Wootton et al., 2017), telemedicine represents a new trend in the healthcare sector (Mbunge et al., 2020). This chapter presents a first step toward creating an intelligent healthcare model that balances medical resources and demand.

People who already have health issues are more vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic's unfavourable effects because they have a higher risk of getting the virus (Banerjee et al., 2020). Because of widespread public concern about the spread of infectious diseases, many people are reluctant to seek regular medical treatment outside of hospitals. Doctors must figure out a way to meet the needs of these patients despite this concern (Uscher-Pines et al., 2020). Because of its benefits, medical experts are looking at telemedicine as an alternative to personal medical attention during the COVID-19 epidemic. There are no time or space constraints and the ability to track and monitor follow-up visits (Li 2020). Doctors in Indonesia are now allowed to diagnose and treat certain chronic illnesses online and issue prescriptions for follow-up online consultations under new guidelines announced by the Indonesian Health Ministry (MoH) in 2019. They have not adopted these procedures because of regional variations in demand and online diagnosis and therapy knowledge. There was an overwhelming inflow of patients at a hospital in the early stages of the outbreak, which resulted in a lack of supplies and limited response from offline medical services. Additional steps have changed how fever clinics, hospitals, and clinics operate. Because of the current epidemic, medical services cannot follow their typical diagnostic and treatment hierarchy. In reaction to an increase in verified cases as well as limited offline medical resources, they have launched online diagnostic and treatment services in every province. For example, nurses, pharmacists, and other medical professionals are also engaged (Bonner 2020). According to statistics from the MoH, there was an increase in the number of online diagnoses and treatments by 17-fold during the outbreak relative to the same period last year. Because of this, the number of diagnostic and treatment consultations and prescriptions on certain third-party internet service platforms has increased by about ten times since last year (Wang et al., 2021).

COVID-19 patients can now receive reimbursement from the National Health Insurance if they undergo a video consultation or professional service via the internet, which has reduced the need for and decreased the need for improved wait-time screening and patient identification via personal medical consultations. (Fesler et al. 2020). Using patients' homes for follow-up visits has also been suggested in cases that have only been marginally validated (Orso et al., 2020). Halodoc initially developed telemedicine in central Jakarta, Indonesia. Although the national healthcare law has impacted this increase, the COVID-19 outbreak has led the government to support telemedicine development during the epidemic as a medical answer (Mahendradhata et al., 2021). Because of this, Indonesia has put in place a lot of rules and procedures to promote telemedicine.

The pandemic has transformed our lives, and more people are embracing treatment through the internet as an option. To test the viability of this chronic illness management strategy, used throughout the pandemic, telemedicine was used to diagnose and treat diabetes patients. In this chapter, we'll examine how telemedicine might expand its reach., as well as the problems and problems to come.