January, 2018
Through socialization with people with dementia and doctors at a memory clinic, employees of Eisai Indonesia discovered that there are several issues with the current MMSE (Mini Mental State Examination) which is effective for early detection of dementia, etc. including long waiting times to take the examination such that the examinees become tired, limits on the number of people who can be examined per day, complex paper data processing making it difficult to track and maintain a large number of examination documents, and the long time required to prepare and implement the examination.
Therefore, in order to solve these problems, Eisai Indonesia developed e-Memory Clinic (e-MC) software, an electronic version of the memory clinic examination to improve the accuracy and convenience of conducting the memory tests by incorporating together the 12 dementia tests such as MMSE and GDS (Geriatric Depression Scale). e-MC was developed in-house by the IT department of Eisai Indonesia. After six months of development and verification, a test installation of e-MC was made at two hospitals, the Sardjito Yogyakarta and Karyadi hospitals, for three months and improvements were made to the e-MC software. Subsequently, e-MC was recognized at the Neurologist National Meeting Congress held in Balikpapan in October 2016, and was introduced to 18 hospitals. After its introduction, education/training on usage, follow-ups, and verifications were carried out for doctors and nurses of memory clinics. Eisai Indonesia received words of delight and gratitude from patients that the waiting time was shortened and that e-MC also gives their brain a workout. Eisai Indonesia also received feedback from doctors saying that the software has significantly improved the speed of the examination, greatly increased the number of persons who can take the examination per day, the examination process can be completed in a short time and people enjoy doing the examination.
This software will be expanded to 30 hospitals in Java, Bali, Kalimantan, Sulawesi and West Nusa Tenggara island by the end of 2018. Currently, the population of Indonesia continues to increase, and is projected to reach 270 million in 2020, 10% of which is expected to be over 60 years old. It is expected that e-MC software will assist early detection of dementia in the future.