Internet Quality across Public Health Centre in Indonesia: Access and Barriers

Abstract

Background Primary health care (Puskesmas) is an integrated healthcare service that serves to improve individual health, preventing and curing disease, and also providing health promotion in Indonesia. To support these roles, the provision of technology infrastructure in Puskesmas is highly important, including the availability of internet connection. Thus, assessing the availability and quality of internet connection among Puskesmas is essential to understand the capacity of Puskesmas to undergo its role in providing optimum health service for the community. Objective This paper provides a thorough examination of the quality of internet connectivity and its relevant information technology infrastructure in Indonesian Puskesmas. Methods A cross-sectional survey was taken throughout all Puskesmas (10,382) in 34 provinces in Indonesia, using an online questionnaire. Categorization was done to analyze internet quality level results. Results A total of 10,378 public health centres (99.96%) participated in this study, with 745 (7.18%) did not have internet access, 1,487 (14,33%) have limited internet access, 5,567 (53.64%) have sufficient internet access, and 2,579 (24.85%) have sufficient and fast internet access. Moreover, 832 Puskesmas (8.02%) do not have 24-hour electricity, 44,196 (43.7%) have CPU with i3 specifications, 43,044 (42.56%) have 512 GB hard disk capacity, and 67,272 (66,5%) uses antivirus. Conclusions Although 79% of Puskesmas in Indonesia already had sufficient internet access, 21% still have limited and insufficient access. To ensure universal internet availability, it is essential to build collaborative support among internet providers and government to foster the availability and utilisation of internet satellites, high-quality computers, and electrical power to support internet connectivity.