This article draws on the discussion in Episode 2 of Patient by Design, EpiSoft’s healthcare podcast.
The episode, Oncology on the Rise – Lessons from Indonesia, is available here – https://youtu.be/ZG-UGWnJMNk
One of the recurring themes in conversations across healthcare systems is that cancer care is rarely delivered by a single clinician or a single organisation. It is a coordinated effort involving specialists, allied health teams, hospitals, families, and increasingly, digital systems designed to connect them all together.
In this article, drawing on the discussion in Episode 2 of ‘Patient by Design,’ we explore some of the similarities and differences observed between cancer care workflows in Australia and Indonesia, particularly around patient navigation, clinical standards, visibility of information, and the role process standardisation can play before more advanced technologies such as AI are introduced.
Different Systems, Similar Challenges
One of the most striking observations from discussions in Indonesia was how varied the patient journey can be before treatment even begins.
In Australia, cancer care is often initiated through a relatively structured referral pathway. Patients typically present to a general practitioner, are referred to a specialist, and then move into treatment services coordinated through hospitals and other oncology providers. While this process is far from perfect, it generally operates within a recognised framework.
In Indonesia, the pathway can be much broader. Patients may access specialists directly, self-refer, or enter the system through a range of different channels depending on location, resources, and provider availability. Despite these structural differences, however, many of the underlying challenges are surprisingly familiar.
Cancer care almost always involves multiple clinicians, multiple systems, and multiple handovers. Where communication between those parties is inconsistent, fragmentation begins to emerge.
The Role of Patient Navigation
One of the clearest themes across both countries was the importance of patient navigation.
Cancer treatment places a significant burden not only on patients themselves, but often on family members and carers coordinating appointments, transport, records, and communication across different providers. In Australia, hospitals and cancer providers increasingly use patient navigation teams to help patients move through these complex pathways more smoothly.
Similar conversations are occurring internationally.
Many hospitals are recognising that patients without strong advocates can struggle to coordinate care across fragmented systems, particularly when multiple specialists and services are involved. Navigation teams, care coordinators, and improved visibility across the patient journey are becoming increasingly important in helping patients stay connected to treatment plans and reducing the risk of delays or confusion.
In many cases, the challenge is not the quality of the clinical care itself, but ensuring that the right information reaches the right people at the right time.
Visibility and the “Single Source of Truth”
A recurring issue discussed throughout the episode was visibility.
Clinicians making treatment decisions need access to pathology results, prior assessments, imaging, treatment history, and multidisciplinary input. When information is spread across disconnected systems or documentation gaps exist between providers, decision-making becomes more difficult.
This is not unique to Indonesia. Australian healthcare organisations face many of the same interoperability and visibility challenges, particularly where care spans multiple organisations and external providers.
The ideal state is often described as a “single source of truth,” where the broader care team can access reliable, up-to-date information without relying on fragmented communication chains or duplicated records.
Achieving that level of visibility is not straightforward. It requires disciplined processes, interoperable systems, and shared approaches to documentation and standards.
The Underestimated Value of Standardisation
One of the strongest observations from the discussion was that many healthcare systems may still have substantial gains available through standardisation and interoperability before introducing more advanced technologies such as AI.
Artificial intelligence continues to attract significant attention across healthcare, particularly in areas such as diagnostics and clinical decision support. But the conversation highlighted that many operational improvements do not necessarily require AI at all.
Shared protocols, interoperable systems, standardised workflows, and consistent documentation practices can already improve visibility, reduce variation, and support faster clinical decision-making.
In cancer care specifically, protocol standards play a particularly important role.
In Australia, many clinicians rely on evidence-based standards such as eviQ, a government-supported cancer treatment protocol library used widely across oncology settings. These standards allow clinicians to draw on the collective expertise of multidisciplinary panels reviewing the latest clinical evidence, rather than relying solely on individual interpretation or memory.
The discussion highlighted that standards become especially valuable in environments where specialist demand is high and clinicians are under significant workload pressure. Standardisation helps reduce uncertainty, streamline prescribing decisions, and support more consistent care delivery across larger patient volumes.
Importantly, this is not simply a technology challenge. It is also a leadership and process challenge.
Even the best systems rely on disciplined adoption, continuity of practice, and organisational alignment around how care should be delivered.
Data, Trust, and Regional Competitiveness
Another topic explored was the growing importance of data in demonstrating healthcare quality and building patient confidence.
In parts of Southeast Asia, some patients continue to travel internationally for cancer treatment, often based on perceptions around quality of care in neighbouring countries. The discussion raised the idea that local healthcare providers may increasingly need to demonstrate outcomes and quality indicators more transparently to build trust within their own populations.
This is where structured data and benchmarking become critically important.
Without reliable and standardised data collection, it becomes extremely difficult for providers to measure outcomes, compare performance, or communicate quality consistently to patients, referrers, and healthcare partners.
Digital systems play an essential role in enabling this. Structured databases, interoperable records, and standardised protocols allow providers to aggregate information across patient populations and identify meaningful patterns that would be difficult to observe through paper-based or fragmented workflows alone.
Collaboration Beyond Borders
The episode also explored the potential for greater international collaboration in cancer care.
As digital communication technologies continue to mature, opportunities are emerging for clinicians and multidisciplinary teams across different countries to collaborate more directly. Shared protocols, benchmarking initiatives, virtual multidisciplinary meetings, and cross-border learning may all contribute to improving consistency of care and accelerating adoption of best practice approaches.
The broader observation was that many healthcare systems are facing similar challenges: rising cancer incidence, increasing complexity of care coordination, specialist shortages, and growing pressure on operational efficiency.
These are not uniquely Australian or Indonesian problems. They are global ones.
A Final Observation
The conversations discussed throughout the episode reinforced that improving cancer care is not solely about introducing new technology. In many cases, it begins with strengthening the fundamentals: clearer pathways, better visibility, shared standards, disciplined processes, and stronger coordination between teams.
Technology can support that work, but it does not replace it.
The healthcare organisations likely to see the greatest long-term gains may be those that focus first on making complex workflows more connected, more transparent, and easier for both clinicians and patients to navigate.
That work is challenging, but it is also highly achievable when systems, standards, and people are aligned toward the same goal.
