Countries around the world have been rolling out their COVID-19 vaccination programmes, including Indonesia. For its second phase, the Indonesian government is collaborating with local tech companies to accelerate the process.
The country’s health ministry announced a new partnership with an online health-tech platform and a ride-hailing unicorn. The health-tech service provider assists with the registration, scheduling of appointments, and setup of the drive-through centres. While the ride-hailing company supports the transport of those unable or unwilling to use their vehicles. Users can register online to access app related to the service.
The drive-through vaccination centre at the Jakarta International Expo in Kemayoran, North Jakarta, comprises four posts. Assistants are verifying IDs and registration status at the entry, and once cleared, visitors will move to the second post to undergo a health check, including blood pressure, oxygen saturation level, and history of comorbidity. Patients without problems are being ushered to the third stop where they finally will be injected with the Sinovac vaccine.
Recipients get the shots in their vehicles. The centre has six lanes for motorcycles and two for cars. Afterwards, everyone must wait at the last post for a 30-minute observation of possible side effects. If there is no problem, they can leave.
The health-tech company was previously running the same facility providing swab tests they said that they were able to finish the preparation in three days because they already have the infrastructure since last year.
Right now, the centre can administer around 600 jabs per day, but the health-tech said they will gradually increase the capacity to several thousand in the coming weeks. The company is assisted by the Hermina Hospital, which provides the medical staff.
In similar cooperation, the health ministry teamed up with an international ride-hailing tech firm and an Indonesian on-demand multi-service platform and digital payment technology group to run a vaccination centre in Bali. Ministry wants to work together and create 100 more lanes for drive-through vaccination.
The Health Ministry said that the cooperation with tech companies is based on necessity and one of the groups that will be vaccinated in the second phase are public transportation workers, that is why they partner with transport-related tech providers.
Moreover, Indonesian Doctors Association (PB IDI) stated that the collaboration will ease up the vaccination process and wished the ministry would pass regulations so that similar centres can be set up in other areas, especially smaller cities. For the medical association, start-ups can act swiftly across the nation.
Indonesia is the first Southeast Asian country to launch drive-through vaccination centres and the first to include tech firms. The country aims to inoculate 181.5 million citizens by March 2022. In the second phase, it targets 17.4 million public-facing workers, including ride-hailing drivers, and 21.5 million elderly.
Tech companies have been actively participating in the country’s battle against the pandemic since last year. Health-tech apps have been used to support Indonesia’s COVID-19 task force distributing information and providing consultation in less severe cases.
Accordingly, as reported by OpenGov Asia, digital transformation is one of the President’s directives. Indonesia is banking heavily on IT-driven transformation to sustain and thrive in the post-COVID era as well as the rapidly evolving digitally dependent global landscape. At the virtual interaction on digital transformation and human resources, Head of the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT), Hammam Riza, noted that every organisation whether government, industry, companies, academics or communities increasingly rely on data and Information Communication Technology (ICT) to increase effectiveness and productivity.