As a key part of Indonesia’s digital health strategy, leaders from Indonesia’s Ministry of Health and CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, have launched a project that will implement CSIRO’s Ontoserver and related products as one of the foundations for the country’s national clinical terminology service.

Officiated by Setiaji, Chief of the Ministry’s Digital Transformation Office (DTO), the recent kick-off workshop was joined by officials from the Ministry’s Center for Data and Information Technology (PUSDATIN), the Australia Indonesia Health Security Partnership (AIHSP), officials from the Health program of Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade (DFAT) from the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, and the members of CSIRO’s Australian eHealth Research Centre (AEHRC) team who will be supporting the Ministry in the project.

Setiaji and Dian Sulistyowati, Head of Information System Standardisation at PUSDATIN, both commented on the significant role Ontoserver will play in the success of Indonesia’s digital health implementation through ensuring that health data is properly coded when stored in EMRs and other information systems, thus ensuring accuracy, comparability, interoperability and enabling powerful analytics.

The Republic of Indonesia recently signed a national licence agreement for SNOMED-CT, which further consolidates Indonesia’s approach to aligning with international standards as part of the implementation of its national digital health strategy. Ontoserver is regarded as the world-leading solution for managing healthcare coding systems, being used in the UK’s NHS, Australia, and a number of European countries.

Setiaji graciously acknowledged the funding made available by the Australian Government for the project, and commented on how well the PUSDATIN-DTO and CSIRO teams are working together.