At the Largest Hospital in the Middle East, a Breakthrough on Telehealth Technology-Facilitated COV…

Leaders at the 1,700-bed Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv, Israel have been making major advances in treating patients with COVID-19 or who might have COVID-19, leveraging a range of telehealth-capable and telehealth-related technologies to keep clinicians and hospital staff members safer, while also enhancing the patient experience.

Sheba Medical Center clinicians and administrators have been working hard and fast to set up telehealth as a fundamental strategy for safely delivering care to patients suspected of having COVID-19 and those who have been diagnosed. They have been partnering with three Israeli vendors—EarlySense, Datos Health, and TytoCare (EarlySense and Datos are based in Ramat Gan, and TytoCare is based in Netanya) to develop an integrated technology platform to help launch a full telehealth-facilitated care delivery process.

With regard to what the leaders at Sheba Medical Center have been doing in this area, Eyal Zimlichman, M.D., a practicing internal medicine specialist and the chief medical officer and chief innovation officer of the hospital, who has helped lead the telehealth initiative, spoke this week with Healthcare Innovation Editor-in-Chief Mark Hagland regarding his team’s efforts, and their results. Below are excerpts from their interview.