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Israel’s healthc
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Nell Walker
Craig Daniels
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Israel’s Ministry of Health has been undergoing a technological overhaul, led by CIO Shira Lev-Ami; she explains why this was necessary, and describes the challenges she has faced
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s chronic diseases evolve and take centre stage, patients live longer, and unhealthy lifestyles become a greater threat, healthcare systems have to change. Israel, like much of the world, has had to transform its own systems in order to keep up with changes, putting pressure on the nation’s Ministry of Health. Shira Lev-Ami, the Ministry of Health’s Chief Information Officer, has spent her five years with the organisation faced with the challenge of altering both the mindset of
colleagues and the processes by which the ministry operates. LevAmi’s multi-disciplinary background which includes earning three masters degrees (political science, law, and business administration) led to jobs in many different corporate sectors, before she decided on a meaningful career in the public health sector. “I started working for non-profit organisations, learning how to create philanthropic strategies,” she explains. “I wanted to create infrastructure that otherwise would not exist. It was always my hobby
Shira Lev-Ami CIO
Shira Lev-Ami is leading the national eHealth strategy definition and implementation. She holds three masters degrees from Tel-Aviv University: Political Science, Business administration and Law. She served as an officer in a Technology Unit and as an organisational consultant in the IDF. Lev-Ami comes from a business background at the Fishman Group headquarters (where she worked on IPOs and other business transactions), and at Shaldor – the leading Israeli strategic business consulting firm. She has experience with third-sector strategy and process at Yad-Hanadiv, one of Israel's largest philanthropic foundations, as Director of Grant-operations and strategy implementation.
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to think ‘how can this process be swimming pools, and so on for improved?’ Eventually I applied for sanitation quality – use a pencil and a job with the government where notebook for their work.” While she I could make a difference.” was up to the challenge, managing The Ministry of Health’s outdated 300 different projects needing information systems proved an uphill to be planned and implemented battle to change for Lev-Ami. Israel’s simultaneously was daunting. Ministry of Health involves “The necessity for around 100 business revolutionising IT was units, each with clear, but moving different processes forward quickly in a and information government setting systems. When is sometimes viewed Lev-Ami joined as an oxymoron: Number of Employees the ministry, government at Ministry Of Health almost all of those processes require units came to her, long tenders and Israel demanding their work overcoming many processes be supported by bureaucratic obstacles. It can adequate information systems. be very discouraging, and explains “It’s hard to believe that in the why a lot of younger and more year 2016, we still have core technologically-minded people processes managed manually. For don’t necessarily want to work example, the ministry’s inspectors for the government. You need – monitoring restaurants, schools, a lot of optimism and to believe
40,000
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“ I wanted to create infrastructure that otherwise would not exist. It was always my hobby to think ‘how can this process be improved?’” that there’s always a way.” The challenge for Lev-Ami’s team is providing the best possible service to all of these units, through creating common technological platforms as the means for synergy: “If you do a good job planning ahead and building enterprise-wide solutions, re-using the common features for any additional required process becomes easy. It’s like a city architecture: design a new city well, and traffic will flow seamlessly; trying to expand a road that was built for carriages in the 18th century will prove much more difficult. “We’re now in a better situation, but we still have a lot of work ahead of us just to make sure we’re supplying the basics.”
The Israeli Ministry of Health, as part of the National ‘Digital Israel’ initiative, aspires to promote the Israeli healthcare system through the use of digital technologies. “We had to make a significant leap in the way we supply health services,” she says. “There’s a saying: trying to provide medical services in the 21st century using 20th century methods would require an impossible amount of doctors. The transformational part of what we’re doing is looking at the health system and the technologies to move it forward. “As a ministry leading the transformation, we have an array of tools to utilise. We combine the use of regulatory guidance with government incentives,
The Health Ministry Uses TIBCO Computerized Systems for Improved Service in Israel’s Emergency Rooms The Health Ministry operates thousands of interfaces between various systems within its jurisdiction and with its partner organizations. To run those interfaces wisely and efficiently, the Ministry has initiated a lateral computerized project for integrating management system interfaces. The Yael Group will implement a TIBCO system that will provide an integration solution between the Ministry’s various systems, between the Ministry and the health system’s organizations, and between the Ministry and other government offices, publics bodies, and hospitals.
The aim of the project is to implement a uniform platform for managing the interfaces in
a controlled and efficient fashion between the Health Ministry and external parties, including the Ministry’s internal interfaces. Currently, the Ministry is promoting an important TIBCO-based project that is focused on an application that enables patients waiting in emergency rooms to track the progress of the various stages of treatment via their mobile phones. This new service is designed to assist patients and their family members and help relieve the hectic management of emergency rooms. The project provides an initial indication whereby the Health Ministry is demonstrating its vision to lever the use of advanced digital solutions to provide optimal service for the citizens of Israel.
Shira Lev-Ami, the Health Ministry’s data systems manager says: The aim of the project was to improve treatment in Israel’s emergency rooms comprises part of the Heath Minister’s vision for improving the public health service. Technological implementation is part of the broad interface computerization project, run by the Ministry’s computing unit, together with assistance from Yael Software’s integration experts. This project positions us at the cutting edge of technology and innovation and will assist us in bringing our solutions and services to the citizen, and enables us to furnish better service. Thus, we can further the health revolution which is today at the forefront of the public and national agenda in Israel.
Nachum Rozenbaum nachumr@yaelsoft.com +972-54-3183081
SAS® Health Care Analytics Assists the Israeli Ministry of health with Analytics and Big Data Solutions for a Higher Standard of Health Care. Better Clinical Performance. Better Care. Better Patient Results.
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network, which she has put into place over the past few years. It is where all public healthcare organisations - providers and hospitals - are able to connect to one network which carries personal medical records. While it is simpler to build one database and fill it with information for all to view, for privacy reasons, it had to be designed in a way that had no central repository. “People get medical treatment in very many places, and the challenge lies in how we make sure all of these treatments are connected, and designed to stimulate investment that crucial medical information in digital health arenas which are can’t fall between the cracks. We under-utilised. In other areas, took responsibility for providing the we’re creating technological infrastructure, not just the regulation, infrastructures ourselves, paving and succeeded in tackling the the highways for digital health continuity of care challenge. The next applications and innovation.” step is utilising the national health One of Lev-Ami’s biggest recent information exchange in a way that projects has been reinventing the enables system-wide innovation.” national health information exchange Another nationwide project has
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“The people who work for the Ministry of Health are people who want to do good. They work from the heart” been focussed on the emergency departments. Over a quarter of Israel’s population visits an ER at least once a year, as a patient or chaperone, many leaving with a bad experience. Targeting shortening waiting periods in the ER, Lev-Ami’s team is deploying a sophisticated system to improve the process. Optimising the ER workflow, while providing patients with information on their precise location in the medical process and estimated wait times, has proved vital in improving patient experience: “We’re developing an ER app which we view as a medical version of Waze, providing transparency on real-time ER situation for patients and decision-makers alike”. The healthcare sector is built
around the concept of ‘do no harm’, which unfortunately goes handin-hand with ‘make no change’. However, Lev-Ami and her team have managed to turn the Ministry of Health’s IT system on its head, which has had the added benefit of vastly increasing trust in the Ministry’s leading role among Healthcare teams, as a valued partner. “The Ministry of Health is a crucial organ for Israeli society, focussing on providing quality and equal healthcare,” Lev-Ami concludes. “To make a process move forward you have to be both a visionary, and very proactive. In the end, the staff working for the Ministry of Health are people who want to do good. People here work from the heart.”
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