How health information system could help the leprosy control program in Indonesia?

Abstract

After India and Brazil, Indonesia is one of the three biggest endemic areas. Report showed that Indonesia's curing rate only 80-90 %. Delay of detect new cases and uncured of leprosy patients will make Indonesia continue to experience many new cases every year. Furthermore, the data showed that Indonesia still had problems in the leprosy control program. Therefore this study explored the barrier of the leprosy control program in Indonesia through health information system perspective and it also described a design of health information system in the leprosy control program. Data collection in this case study took three months using qualitative research through deep interviews, focus group discussions (FGD) and observations. This research used thematic analysis/ framework analysis. This study shows the Indonesia leprosy control program has weakness in maintaining of continuity data. Staff rotating in primary health center and district health office often made unconnected data or missing documents or computer's file in the leprosy control program. Active case finding method was done ineffectively because leprosy health workers did not have data to appoint the risk neighborhood. Implementation health information system in the leprosy control program is noteworthy because characteristics of leprosy which needs long term care, in contrast doing in paper base is very difficult to accomplish that. Information systems could help leprosy health workers perform surveillance function. It can keep patient's data for long time, query data and give reminder to patients, their family and leprosy health workers.