UNODC takes part in digitalising drug treatment services to increase the services’ access for People with Substance Use Disorders

The UNODC Programme Office for Indonesia (POIDN), in collaboration with Indonesian Association of Addiction Counsellor (IKAI), initiated to create an application called “RehabNet”. The idea to develop this application came after seeing the difficulty of people with substance use disorder to access health services during the Covid 19 pandemic.

Initially, the app aimed to ensure continued access to drug treatment services during the COVID-19 lockdown. But after some discussion and adjustments, we saw that this application is also a breakthrough for access to treatment services for drug users.

The RehabNet application is designed as a first-aid service that is accessible to people with substance use disorders or their relatives. The main focus provided by this application is to connect people with substance use disorders to psychosocial services such as rehab or counsellors. The user of this app can make an appointment for a general consultation with an online counsellor for any drug-related problems.

The service provided includes online screening tests to identify the risk of dependence. If the screening results as low to mild risk, they can make an appointment with an online counsellor for counselling (either online or offline). As for high-risk identification results, the app will provide a list of available treatment referrals that clients can choose. The app can also be a centre for adequate information about drug use disorders.

As a method of maintaining the quality of service, users of this application like clients, counsellors and treatment facilities can provide feedback based on simple satisfaction surveys. And like health services in general, this application also holds the principle of confidentiality of the data of users/clients.

RehabNet App will launch in March 2022. Prior to that, meetings were planned and organised with the involvement from government counterparts like National Narcotics Board (BNN), Ministry of Social Affairs and Ministry of Health to have an in-dept discussion, inputs and their support of this initiative. Furthermore, UNODC PTRS Head Office will support to widely disseminate this initiative in several international conferences like the ISAM (International Society of Addiction Medicine) Global Conference. 

Many expectation are put on the successful development of this App and it can make people have a variety of options to access the treatment services in the easiest way with more privacy on it.