Israel-based Sheba Medical Centre and the Swedish Karolinska University Hospital will work together in digital health, with the aim of bridging the gap between healthcare, research and innovation.

WHY IT MATTERS

Developing strategic partnerships between international hospitals is seen as a key area in order to combine knowledge and skill in bringing new solutions in digital healthcare that will benefit patients. Sheba Medical Centre has a reputation for developing digital medical that has been adopted both in Israel and around the world.

The Israeli medical facility has committed itself to becoming a genome-based hospital, so this collaboration will help it move that objective forward.

The hospitals will concentrate on joint solutions in the areas of new health technologies, clinical data and precision medicine. These areas have been highlighted by Karolinska as a priority to bridge the gap between healthcare, research and innovation, growing their innovative ecosystems by working jointly to bring new digital solutions that benefit patients. 

THE LARGER CONTEXT

Karolinska University Hospital is ranked number seven globally and number two in Europe on Newsweek’s list of World’s Best Hospitals 2021. 

The hospital has been working on a new imaging technique that may become the standard in healthcare. The computed tomography can determine the degree of narrowing in a calcified blood vessel more accurately, and more easily identify a stroke in certain parts of the brain.

The Swedish medical facility has the best results for number of heart surgeries and lowest mortality.

Sheba Medical Center is Israel’s largest medical centre and the most comprehensive in the Middle East. Sheba’s City of Health has an acute-care hospital, rehabilitation hospital, research and innovation hubs, and centre for disaster response. The healthcare centre has an established innovation programme, ARC, that has been operating for more than four years.

ON THE RECORD

“Given that both institutions have expertise in genomics, there is particular interest in exploring precision medicine projects that will enable us to put the patient at the centre of care in more advanced ways,” Professor Eyal Zimlichman, Sheba's chief medical and innovation officer told MobiHealthNews. 

“At Sheba Medical Center, a lot of resources are invested in big data and artificial intelligence work, including projects that cross into pathology.  In fact, Sheba's pathology institute has gone digital and can now capitalise on electronic data that can also be merged with data from radiology. This is one future direction that we are taking now.

“We support research and innovation through grants that support the activities of innovation hubs. The connection to healthcare is clear, given that all of our projects aim to improve care delivery and thus shape the future of medicine.”