Collaborating in the Shadow of Conflict: Building the Future of Healthcare

Prof. Eyal Zimlichman

Co-chair and Co-founder of FOH, Chief Transformation Officer, Chief Innovation Officer, Founder and Director of ARC at Sheba Medical Center

Last month, hospital executives, investors, payors and academics from six continents gathered together in Boston at Beth Israel Lahey Health for the annual Future of Health (FOH) summit. The FOH is an initiative co-founded in 2018 to bring together key players across the health ecosystem to collaborate in resolving global healthcare challenges. Each year, FOH holds a series of regular, structured interdisciplinary meetings to address several key issues facing the healthcare sector with previous years focusing on the importance of AI and creating learning systems at scale.

The summit this year took place shortly after the horrific and tragic events of October 7th. While some would choose to scale back and take stock, we decided to move ahead with the conference, with even greater resolve and commitment. It was inspiring to hear from Prof. Yitshak Kreiss, Director of Sheba Medical Center, addressing the conference from the hospital’s situation room. His rallying call for peace, humanity and a better world was reflected by participants throughout the conference and echoed by a strong solidarity with Israel.

The mission of the FOH is to create a brighter future for everyone, even in the midst of conflict patients worldwide need and require us to continue working to improve the quality of care they receive. With the spirit of solidarity continuing throughout the conference, our discussions on collaboration rang truer than ever.

We discussed several areas where collaboration and innovation can help build a brighter future for collective healthcare. Here are some of the key topics that emerged:

The world is facing an aging population and a growing incidence of chronic conditions, increasing reliance on healthcare and driving higher costs.

Shifting the Paradigm: Prevention Over Treatment

The world is facing an aging population and a growing incidence of chronic conditions, increasing reliance on healthcare and driving higher costs. While the Covid-19 pandemic necessitated a preventative approach to restrict the spread of the disease, this approach now needs wider application. The conventional approach of treating patients when they are sick needs to change to keeping people well and preventing them from getting sick.

At the heart of this transformation lies the essential need to shift towards a value-based system. Reimbursement is based on the cost, quality and outcomes of care and therefore rewards a treatment-centric approach. It is critical that we tie payments and financial incentives to preventative medicine to shift this paradigm. We need prevention of disease to be equally valued to its treatment ensuring that health providers are fairly rewarded for keeping their populations healthy.

Similarly, the advent of big data and artificial intelligence in recent years can be used to our advantage to achieve this goal. Predictive models combined with remote monitoring systems allow physicians to extend their reach and accountability for patients while addressing early warning signs of disease.

Embrace Learning: Nurturing a Culture of Excellence

The concept of healthcare providers as learning organizations is not just a theoretical ideal; it is a pragmatic necessity. As doctors, we constantly seek evidence, which plays a vital role in providing care. When evidence is lacking, we rely on our own judgment. Thanks to data, we no longer need to rely on intuition alone and can begin to integrate more evidence into our decision making.
Through collaboration with health technology vendors, large hospital systems and governments, we can incorporate data into medical practice, ensuring that everything is rooted in evidence and that treatment decisions are guided by comprehensive analysis of all the data we have available. Generative AI is receiving vast global interest and we are eager to explore how these large language models can be deployed in a safe and effective way in healthcare, integrating years of medical knowledge and experience into a single tool.

To make this change happen we need to cultivate a culture of data-driven decision-making. Both within our organization, as well as between organizations. Data has the power to enhance both the efficiency and effectiveness of our healthcare practices, but first we need to look outside the constraints of the existing healthcare ecosystem to form learning collaborations that can make this a reality.

Overcoming the Workforce Crisis: Foster Innovation to Create Sustainable Healthcare

A uniting challenge for health providers across the globe is the workforce crisis. The shortage of skilled professionals necessitates a radical rethinking of our healthcare systems. In many US states, regulatory requirements force providers to meet unrealistic and unsustainable employment targets, increasing costs for health systems and putting pressure on executives. In response, we cannot look for short term responses such as temp agencies, we need long-term sustainable solutions requiring both legislative change and innovation.

Technology can help bridge our workforce gap, offering opportunities to provide exceptional care even with limited resources. Through telemedicine we can expand the reach of our medical staff, allowing patients to be seen remotely. AI can provide us with time and efficiency savings, automating tasks and freeing physician time for further patient care. We have already seen tremendous progress with the use of AI in radiology, cardiology and neurology, and this will continue to impact other areas of care. With the help of AI, we can utilize a smaller workforce while delivering the same high-quality care and reducing costs for everyone.

These three key areas are interdependent and will create a better future for healthcare. The adoption of a prevention-first approach requires data and evidence at its core to succeed, providing us with predictive models that will preempt disease before they happen. Through preventative measures, we can keep our populations healthier and out of hospitals, reducing the strain on overloaded providers, easing staffing concerns and lessening the impact of the workforce crisis. Financially, the common driver for these changes needs to be value-based payment systems, there is no way around this. Health systems need to be accountable for health, thus being paid to attain wellness rather for medical services.

Despite the diverse representation at the FOH conference, including speakers from lower and higher income countries across the healthcare spectrum, it is clear our challenges are shared. It is therefore logical that we pursue tangible, cost effective global solutions. The path forward involves technological adoption that expands the capabilities reach of medical staff and continues our long tradition of evidence-based medicine. This is where collaboration shines. Through our shared insight, knowledge and experiences we can create a greater society that redefines and elevates the way healthcare is delivered in the future.

Our mission to continue innovating and collaborating to improve global healthcare is even important today in the face of local and global crises. When faced with challenges we have to press on, be resolute and continue to make patient care our top priority. It is the way we know best and offers the best hope and future for humanity.

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