Developing a framework for self-isolation app: a case study of Jakarta’s COVID-19 mitigation

Abstract

Self-isolation for COVID-19 suspects plays a crucial role due to a lack of medical personnel and hospital capacity in Jakarta. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has taken an unprecedented toll on health services because the number of infections continues to climb and is thought to be far higher because many people have not been tested. This phenomenon opens an opportunity to support innovative collaborations between government and city co-creators (e.g. start-up companies) to develop a digital application for monitoring the self-isolation activity of COVID-19 suspects. This paper proposes a conceptual framework for developing a self-isolation app by conducting in-depth interviews with 20 participants from the Jakarta Health Office and mobile health app start-up companies. The result of this paper figures out the key features of the app, such as suspects database, daily monitoring form, geotagging, chatroom, test scheduling, panic button, and daily notification. In this paper, Jakarta was selected as a case study since it is stated as a collaboration city which initiates the opportunity to business sectors for increasing access and public service quality. This paper uses design thinking methods as an evidence base to develop a self-isolation app. The conceptual framework provides the foundation for the input-process-output model and insights into what an appropriate approach for the requirements of the self-isolation app development. This paper provides a better understanding of common elements in building the app. Its conceptual framework fits in any government sector. Also, it can inspire other cities to consider the model in developing a similar application with structural and systematic phases in every development step. Further research should be carried out to build an extension model of the design thinking approach to get specific quantitative and qualitative results.