“Hospitals in Indonesia face major digital challenges, as many use non-standard EMR systems, depend heavily on vendors, and struggle with limited IT resources. Large hospital groups also need a unified system that can scale across multiple facilities. The DMP-Better collaboration directly solves these problems.”
For this year’s Mission magazine, we talked to Ricky Gunawan, Director at PT Daya Medika Pratama, who explained how the partnership between Daya Medika Pratama and Better has evolved into a joint effort to deliver AFYA Better, a modern, openEHR-based hospital information system tailored to the realities of Indonesian healthcare. He shared his thoughts on the value of combining local expertise with a globally proven platform, the role of open standards in long-term digital maturity, and how this collaboration is helping hospital groups like Hermina build a consistent digital foundation.
The collaboration between Daya Medika Pratama and Better has grown significantly in both scale and ambition. How would you describe the essence of this partnership, and what makes it such a strong fit for the Indonesian healthcare market?
The collaboration between Daya Medika Pratama (DMP) and Better combines DMP’s deep insight into Indonesian hospital operations and Better’s globally proven openEHR technology. Indonesian hospitals face complex requirements, including integration with SATUSEHAT and BPJS Kesehatan, which DMP is well-equipped to handle. Better adds a modern, standardised, and scalable platform used by over 1,000 hospitals worldwide.
This partnership works because DMP aligns the solution with local workflows, Better provides a secure and interoperable foundation, and both share a vision for structured data and long-term transformation. The result is a solution that is stable, fast to implement, and highly flexible for Indonesia’s hospital landscape.
AFYA Better is the result of joint development between DMP and Better. What does this co-creation process look like in practice, and how has combining local expertise with a globally proven platform shaped the final product?
AFYA Better is developed through complementary roles: DMP leads implementation and clinical customisation, designing workflows, building openEHR templates, handling integrations, training staff, and ensuring the solution fits local regulations and hospital culture. This makes DMP the local architect that brings the platform to life. Meanwhile, Better provides the technological foundation, including the openEHR-based Better Platform, tooling such as Better Studio, and technical support to ensure performance, security, and long-term stability. Together, this creates a development process that is fast, adaptive, stable, and scalable across hospitals.
Indonesia’s healthcare landscape is large, diverse, and undergoing a major digital transformation. From your perspective, what are the biggest challenges hospitals face, and how does the DMP & Better collaboration uniquely help address these challenges?
Hospitals in Indonesia face major digital challenges, as many use non-standard EMR systems that are hard to integrate with SATUSEHAT, depend heavily on vendors for even small changes, and struggle with limited IT resources. Large hospital groups also need a unified system that can scale across multiple facilities. The DMP-Better collaboration directly solves these problems. An openEHR-based platform with native FHIR integration simplifies interoperability, while archetypes and templates reduce vendor dependency. Better tools accelerate clinical development, and DMP ensures the solution fits local workflows. AFYA Better is also designed for enterprise scale, proven by its deployment across the Hermina hospital network.
You chose openEHR and the Better Platform as the technological foundation for AFYA Better. What drove that decision, and how do open standards and structured clinical data support the long-term digital maturity of Indonesian healthcare providers?
The decision is based on the belief that clinical data is one of the hospital’s most valuable long-term assets. openEHR provides standardised, vendor-neutral data structures, allows clinical changes through templates rather than code, and enables real interoperability across hospitals in the same group. Better was chosen because it is the most mature openEHR platform globally and offers a complete ecosystem that accelerates development. With this foundation, AFYA Better HIS becomes a long-term digital platform, not just a hospital information system.
With Hermina’s decision to roll out AFYA Better across its hospitals, the partnership is entering a new phase of scale and impact. What are your expectations for the next three to five years, and where do you see the collaboration expanding?
Over the next three years, implementing AFYA Better across the Hermina network will serve as a major accelerator of digital transformation for all Hermina’s hospitals, through standardised clinical documentation, CPOE integrated with CDS, and consolidated structured clinical data based on openEHR.
The DMP–Better collaboration ensures that every Hermina facility adopts consistent and high-quality digital workflows, while strengthening clinical and digital human resources becomes a key factor, so that transformation relies not only on technology but also on organisational readiness and competence. With a strong platform and well-trained personnel, all Hermina hospitals are expected to achieve the required digital maturity within three years.
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