The 2nd Health Research and Development Symposium in Asia Pacific Region
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dpramanto
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Jakarta – The National Institute of Health Research and Development (NIHRD) held the 2nd Health Research and Development Symposium in the Asia Pacific Region on November 18-20, 2014 at The Grand Sahid Jaya Hotel, Jakarta, Indonesia. The symposium theme, focused on the new scheme of national health insurance, is “Health Innovation and Health System Strengthening towards Implementation of National Health Insurance”.
The Highlights
Attended by more than 500 participants from the Asia Pacific region and 71 speakers from Indonesia, Thailand, Japan, the Philippines, Korea, and Australia, the 2nd Health Research and Development Symposium in Asia Pacific region aimed:
- To disseminate health research findings from research institutions, universities, and institutions in Asia Pacific region,
- To exchange success stories and challenges of health insurance implementation in Asia and Pacific region,
- To exchange health innovations related to medicines, vaccines, traditional medicines, community based models, environmental health and other technology to improve health status,
- To create and maintain research networking in Asia Pacific region,
- To obtain recommendation for improving the implementation of national health insurance.
There were definitely many interesting things to see and lots of new information to learn in the symposium. Participants prepared posters, banners, and brochures to show off their research findings and success stories. Some participants also had their research products such as traditional herbal medicine or drinks distributed to attract visitors to come and listen to the explanation.
As for our network, INA-RESPOND, we prepared seven interesting posters* about the network, studies, findings, and success story to be displayed in our booth. We also gave tutorials on how to use the public medical library, PubMed. We could really feel our visitors’ enthusiasm as they asked questions and wrote down the given explanation in their note books. Some even used their phones to record the information.
Among the many visitors are the new Minister of Health, Republic of Indonesia and the Head of National Institute of Health Research and Development, Indonesia (see picture 1). Dr. Karyana, the Chair of INA-RESPOND, gave a comprehensive explanation providing interesting information about our network and its studies, especially the Acute Febrille Illness Requiring Hospitalization (AFIRE). The Minister of Health left our booth with high hopes for the network’s continued success and looked forward to getting the network’s progress report. Also on the first day, a reporter from a local newspaper, Suara Pembaharuan, came to our booth and interviewed dr. Karyana and dr. Herman, our network’s Scientific Coordinator, to get information on the network and studies.
Besides the posters, banners, and tutorial, we also had a quiz for our visitors. All the questions in the quiz were network-and-study-related. The quiz received positive feedback from our visitors saying that the questions were quite challenging and the prize was useful. Some of them even told others about our booth, and more people came to take the quiz and to get the prize. Of course, they would not be able to answer the questions if they had not read the posters and banners. After all, it is our intention to promote our network and its studies to other researchers and to the public.
The Impression
The participation of INA-RESPOND in the 2nd Health Research and Development Symposium in the Asia Pacific Region is commendable especially seeing that it was our first time. In just about 2 weeks after the notice by Dr. Siswanto, one of our Governing Board members, the INA-RESPOND Secretariat was able to coordinate everything, both operational and scientific, from managing the budget and setting up the booth to creating informative posters and designing banners and brochures. This could not have been a success without everyone’s contribution.
With the exposure from the symposium, we are now one step closer to our dream, to become a well-recognized research network, and we will keep on spreading the news and moving forward until everyone knows the name INA-RESPOND network. -RED