Utilization of hospitals in RI below average

JAKARTA (JP): A comparative study on hospitals in the Asia- Pacific region released here on Tuesday indicated that the utilization of hospitals in Indonesia was below average.

The hospital benchmarking was performed by management consultancy Prasetio Utomo Strategic and Arthur Andersen, in cooperation with the Ministry of Health. It showed that bed occupancy rates in major Indonesian hospitals averaged 64.5 percent.

This was slightly below the mean figure for the region, including Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines which was 65.8 percent, Darryl J. Hadaway of Arthur Andersen said.

The survey, detailing data gained from questionnaires sent to managers of 14 private hospitals and 21 state hospitals throughout the country from June to September, was presented in a half-day seminar.

The survey did not include figures for the number of hospitals surveyed in other countries.

Another finding was that patients in Indonesian hospitals stayed for longer, an average of 6.44 days compared to the regional average of 5.5 days.

Hadaway, the consultancy's Asia-Pacific health care director, referred to poor management of inpatients as one factor contributing to the lengthier stays.

Arthur Andersen's health care manager, Linus M. Setiadi, said the analysis of the data had yet to be completed.

According to former president Soeharto's accountability speech in March 1998, there were 641 state hospitals and 1,005 private hospitals at the time for more than 200 million people across the country.

Hadaway said the crisis was no excuse against improving health services and facilities. Some improvements, he said, could be done by hospital managers, especially cutting costs. "Indonesia has a distinct advantage today on cost of labor...," the report said. "This cost is likely to grow and more focus will be required to manage impacts of changes here."

"Bigger hospitals are harder to manage," Hadaway said.

Umar Fahmi Achmadi, director of research and development at the Ministry of Health, said the hospital bench making was a "milestone" to motivate hospitals to improve service and management quality.

The survey resulted in both a profile of the overall performance of all 35 hospitals and a profile of each hospital. The latter was confidential.

The consultants sent out questionnaires to 90 hospitals but only 35 returned them. (01)