Jl. Indrapura 17 Surabaya 60176

Phone (6231) 3528748, Fax (6231) 3528749

E-mail : agus-p4k@surabaya.wasantara.net.id

The Center for Health Services Research and Development, or Health System Research (HSR) was originally known as the Venereal Diseases Research Institute (VDRI) and was established in 1951. At that time control activities of venereal diseases and yaws included a development of control methods for venereal diseases. In 1964 the institute was redesigned as the National Institute of Public Health, directly responsible to the Ministry of Health (MOH). In 1973, the MOH established the National Center of Health Research (NHR) to coordinate all research activities carried out by the National Institute of Health Research and Development (NIHRD). It was redesigned as the Health Services Research and Development Center and became one of the six research centers of NIHRD.

To strengthen Indonesia’s health system research capabilities and to develop health services research relating to health care delivery through Primary Health Care in the process, it also develops managerial skills for health development in health personnel. In addition to the national commitments as stated above, the center is designed as one of the WHO Collaborating Centers with the function of strengthening national health services.

The organization consists of structural and functional components. The structural components, is divided into four divisions, i.e. General Administration, Planning and Reporting, Documentation and Publication, Facilities and Financing. The functional components consist of research scientists involved in Health Policy, Health Services Technology and Nursery, Technology Development on Communication Information and Education and Health Management.

The center undertakes operational activities primarily based on the needs of the consumers. The consumers in this respect are from the various health services of the Ministry of Health from policy level to the field.

There are 40 researchers in this Center and 32 of them are experienced scientists. Most of them are multi-disciplinarily trained to meet the demand of the health services problems of the country. Because of the diversity of problems, such as policy, organization, etc., the approaches adopted by the Center are to cover a wide range of methods and disciplines.

As a strategy of research operationas, there are several unit laboratories (central laboratories) i.e. acupuncture laboratory, traditional medicine laboratory, inner power laboratory, and health reproduction laboratory.

The Center, during its progression of research activities, also provides periodic training courses for its staff to bring them up to date in technology in the field of health services research and development. These courses are delivered by senior staff members of the center as well as national and foreign experts from other institutions.

As a WHO Collaborating center, the center actively conducts training on HSR. The main objectives are to disseminate concepts about HSR, to train future HSR workers, and to develop an understanding of the contribution of HSR toward solving priority health care problems. This training will be conducted annually for middle level program managers, health officers and researchers. Small projects will be conducted in the field, in line with the steps and methodology suggested in the training course.

Moreover, this Center also carries out development of HSR projects as a follow up the above training activities. A well designed set of HSR projects will be planned and conducted with full involvement of key decision makers, in order to provide useful results for health managers. Decision makers will be asked to identify priority issues and problems and will then be involved in the design and implementation of the research studies aimed at solving these problems. A major effort will be placed on the utilization of the result from such HSR studies.

As part of the training activities some short courses about HSR methodology, health economics research methodology, base data collection, processing and analysis, management of research and development project, and health trend assessment can be offered. These training courses are include for middle level managers and below, who are responsible for operational activities, for researchers and the academic community, including students and lecturers.

The center has its own library consisting of about 15,000 books, subscribes to about 206 titles of national and foreign periodicals and also 3 national newspapers. This library has been developed to support the documentation and publication section and activities of the researchers in this Center. The Center has access also to the HELLIS and SEAMIC information networks.

This Center also has :

• Hall for seminar and training
• Hotel facility
• Computer facilities
• Audio Visual Aids (AVA)