IP: 182.255.1.14 On: Wed, 02 May 2018 05:55:42 Copyright: American Scientific Publishers Delivered by Ingenta Copyright © 2017 American Scientific Publishers All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America RESEARCH ARTICLE Advanced Science Letters Vol. 23, 3313–3317, 2017 SMS Gateway Application for Suspected Tuberculosis Reporting Diah Indriani * , Mahmudah, Soenarnatalina, and Hari Basuki Notobroto Department of Biostatistics and Population, Public Health Faculty Airlangga University, Mulyorejo Street Campus C UNAIR, Surabaya 60115, Indonesia Background: Tuberculosis (TB) remains a major health problem in the world. Surabaya city had the highest number of TB cases in the province of East Java (3990 cases). The purpose of this research was to develop a network system of SMS Gateway to assist health cadres in attracting new TB suspects. This system would need active participation of the social environment, especially health cadres/community. Methods: This study was a qualitative and applied research. In this study, SMS Gateway System was built based on System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) method. The feasibility of this system was reviewed on health cadres in one of the health centers in Surabaya. The feasibility review was done by the level of acceptance (convenience and usability) of the system. Result: Analysis on the acceptance level of SMS Gateway was done by comparing the results of in-depth interviews and the results of observations. The results of in-depth interviews to 5 health cadres showed that this system was very useful and very easy to do. The reporting of new TB suspect was only done via SMS and did not need to be reported to the health center. The patients also gained benefits because of the rapid response of health assistance. Cadres were also very enthusiastic to use this SMS and willing to be the cadre in TB suspect reporting. Conclusion: SMS Gateway application can be used as a tool for suspected TB reporting. SMS Gateway is a method of active case finding. It requires the active participation of the community. Keywords: SMS Gateway, Suspect, Tuberculosis, Reporting. 1. INTRODUCTION The highest number of Tuberculosis (TB) incidence in the province of East Java city was in Surabaya (3990 cases). 1 TB deaths in Surabaya were estimated at 10108 patients with BTA positive. One of the health center which has a low case detection rate (CDR) in Surabaya was “Pacarkeling” Health Cen- tre with a CDR about 52.46%. 2 This rate will show unfavorable if the real conditions of number of TB cases is greater than this value. People with latent TB is a threat to the increase in new cases of TB. The low rate of detecting of new TB cases are caused by a lack of knowledge in community about the importance of cure from TB and TB control. Social support of controlling TB is also needed to reduce TB cases. Public perception about TB is still a minor, that TB is considered a disease that is taboo to be known by others. It causes difficulty of finding new TB cases, as well as the level of public knowledge about TB is still lacking. How do we make community support indispensable in prevention of the TB’s spread? Community must respond to the emergence of new cases of TB and response to patterns of TB treatment that takes a long time. And drop out treatment is very risk for community too. Community awareness programs, especially in * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. high-risk environments the rate of transmission can be initiated with the support of community leaders and health workers. This study aimed to develop a network system SMS Gateway to help the health workers in capturing new TB suspects with the active participation of the social environment, especially cadres, to report early via SMS network Gateway. 2. METHODS This research was applied research by performing application SMS Gateway as a technology for capturing new cases of Tuber- culosis. Implementation of SMS Gateway was done by empow- ering health cadres. The acceptance rate SMS Gateway was explored and analyzed qualitatively. Samples in this research were TB program manager in Health Centre “Pacarkeling” Surabaya and health cadres. Purposive sampling technique was taken according to their information needs. The variable in this study is the perception of TB program manager on TB record- ing and reporting system in health centre and acceptance level of application from health cadres as user. Variables in SMS Gateway to capture new suspected TB, i.e., characteristics of TB suspect and symptoms related to the perceived suspected TB. The infor- mation that has been included in the SMS Gateway system was stored in the system database and was kept confidential by giving limited access rights to the database. The information then used Adv. Sci. Lett. Vol. 23, No. 4, 2017 1936-6612/2017/23/3313/005 doi:10.1166/asl.2017.9183 3313