Increasing Use of Research Findings in Improving Evidence-Based Health Policy at the National Level

Abstract

In February 2016, the Minister of Health decided to increase the use of research findings in improving the quality of the national health policy and planning. The Ministry of Health has instructed the National Institute of Health Research and Development or NIHRD to play a stronger role of monitoring and evaluating all health programs, because "their opinion and research findings should be the basis for changes in national health policies and planning". Compared to the past, the Ministry of Health has increased the research budget for evidence-based research tremendously. However, there is a gap between the information needs of program and policy-makers and the information offered by researchers. A close dialogue is needed between the users (program managers, policy makers and planners) and the suppliers (researchers and evaluators) to ensure that the evidence-based supplied by research is useful for programs, planning and health policy. Keywords: Evidence-based, health policy, national, research, use Abstrak Pada bulan Februari 2016, Menteri Kesehatan memutuskan untuk meningkatkan pemanfaatan temuan penelitian sebagai landasan perubahan kebijakan dan perencanaan kesehatan nasional yang lebih berkualitas. Badan penelitian dan pengembangan kesehatan nasional (Balitbangkes) diminta untuk lebih berperan dalam pemantauan dan evaluasi semua program kesehatan karena pendapat para penelitian dan temuan mereka sepatutnya menjadi dasar perubahan kebijakan dan perencanaan kesehatan nasional. Dibandingkan masa lampau, Kementerian Kesehatan telah mengalokasikan dana penelitian yang jauh lebih banyak untuk penelitian evidence-based saat ini. Namun, tetap saja terlihat kesenjangan antara informasi yang dibutuhkan program dan pengambilan keputusan dan informasi yang ditawarkan hasil penelitian. Diperlukan dialog antara pengguna (pengelola program/perencana dan pengambil keputusan) dan pemasok informasi (peneliti/evaluator) agar temuan penelitian dapat menjadi bukti dasar perencanaan dan perubahan kebijakan.

Strategi Pengembangan Balai Penelitian Dan Pengembangan Kesehatan Banjarnegara

“…Hasil-hasil penelitian kesehatan saat ini belum banyak memengaruhi perbaikan kesehatan di Indonesia hal ini disebabkan oleh masih banyak topik-topik penelitian yang dilakukan oleh peneliti tanpa dikaitkan dengan program-program prioritas pemerintah. Hal tersebut disebabkan karena para peneliti jarang sekali berdiskusi dengan pemangku kepentingan dalam menyusun proposal sehingga tujuan utama penelitian tidak berlandaskan akan kebutuhan program 5 .…”

Mata-Data: Data visualization in approaching evidence-based health policy

“…In Indonesia, the implementation of evidence-based health policy was still problematic. Budiharsana (2017) shown in her article titled "Increasing Use of Research Findings in Improving Evidence-based Health Policy at National Level" that policy formulations in the Ministry of Health were not grounded on any studies. In designing policies, the Ministry of Health has never requested for any measurable data and information.…”

“…Even though, as has been mentioned above, many kinds of research done by the Ministry of Health have not been related to the policies within Ministry itself, many surveys and studies portraying the health conditions and their social determinants since several years ago, such as National Health Survey, Basic Health Research, and Indonesian Health Demographics Survey have been conducted by Ministry of Health, by itself or in collaboration with Statistics Indonesia (Badan Pusat Statistik). Unfortunately, as has been described in the paragraph above, those data-however, limited they are in portraying health conditions, challenges and opportunities in Indonesia-has never been applied to honestly inform on how policies and programs are being planned within Ministry itself (Budiharsana, 2017). Even worse, non-governmental sectors, such as researchers from universities and research institutes, cannot acquire the raw data from the individual surveys without paying a significant amount of fund.…”