Five UGM students in the Student Creativity Program have developed an all-in-one herbal-based healthcare application to strengthen family health resilience after the pandemic.
The application, named Herbacare, can detect the nearest TCAM (traditional, complementary alternative medicine) service providers and enables appointments with physicians, medical specialists, and traditional healthcare experts.
“This application allows TCAM therapy to be conducted at the nearest healthcare facility or through home care services,” said Fitriana Aulia Sabila Eka Putri, a team member and student of the Faculty of Medicine, Public Health, and Nursing.
Indonesia, the country with the second-highest biodiversity in the world after Brazil, has 9,600 identified species of medicinal plants. Unfortunately, the traditional medicine industry uses only 200 of these species in herbal product manufacturing.
With its high biodiversity, Indonesia should be able to meet the raw material needs of the traditional medicine industry. The students aim to bridge this gap through their application.
According to Fitriana Putri, Herbacare features EduTCAM, a virtual reality-based learning medium that integrates the real and virtual worlds.
This feature allows Herbacare users to learn about the roles of various herbal products in health, especially in complementary therapy and palliative therapy, to improve the quality of life for patients suffering from incurable diseases.
“In addition to conventional education methods, our team is also designing herbaverse, a virtual reality that can be used as a TCAM and herbal learning medium. Through such digitalization efforts, TCAM and herbal use in Indonesia are expected to advance globally,” said Putri.
The application can also detect whether herbal products in the market are registered with the Indonesian Food and Drug Authority. This is made possible by artificial intelligence technology and the data bank used in the application.
Given the prevalence of illegal products in the market that may contain hazardous chemical drug mixtures, this feature is expected to protect the public and consumers from the harmful effects of such products.
In addition to Putri, other students involved in developing this application are Rasyid Kusnady, Devrangga Hazza Mahiswara, and Pudyasta Satria Pinandhita, students of the Vocational College, and Vicky Rian Saputra from the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences.
The team received support from the UGM Center for Herbal Medicine, with Dr. Arko Jatmiko Wicaksono as the supervising lecturer. Several expert lecturers, such as Prof. Mae Sri Hartati W from the Department of Pharmacology and Therapy and Dr. Nur Arfian from the Department of Anatomy, who are involved in teaching media, big data, and herbal medicine, also assisted the team.
According to Dr. Arko Wicaksono, the application designed by the students answers the future’s healthcare information needs. With digitalization, products like this application are essential and should be developed.
“It not only strengthens family health resilience but can potentially bridge the healthcare service gap due to high public demand,” he said.
Apart from participating in the Student Creativity Program, the team plans to submit their application design to various business competitions and incubators.
“Our next step is to transform this creative idea into a startup business so that its benefits don’t end after the Student Creativity Program; instead, it can truly be felt by the users of this application,” added Vicky Saputra.
Author: The UGM Herbacare Team
Editor: Gloria