Indonesia's Deputy Health Minister Calls for Strict AI Governance in Healthcare

Deputy Health Minister Prof. Dr. Dante Saksono Harbuwono warned that artificial intelligence (AI) use in medical care must be governed carefully because errors can endanger lives. At a national conference in Jakarta on 8 June 2026 he asked, “When a computer program recommends a diagnosis to a doctor, who is responsible if the recommendation is wrong?” and stressed that “innovation without governance is risk, and governance without innovation is stagnation.”

He highlighted several AI‑driven programmes already in use: portable X‑ray devices have screened about 200,000 people for tuberculosis since 2023; AI‑assisted lung‑cancer detection (Harrison.ai) reached 90 % accuracy versus 83 % for radiologists; AI‑aided stroke detection using CT scans achieved 98 % accuracy compared with 74 % manually; and a mass TB screening effort examined 38,000 scans, flagging 4,000 suspected TB cases and 12,000 other lung abnormalities. The conference, titled “Towards the Future of a Safe, Fair, and Responsible Health Artificial Intelligence Ecosystem,” focused on drafting regulations for AI‑based medical devices, securing patient consent, and establishing data‑governance bodies such as the SATUSEHAT and SATUSEHAT AI platforms.