COVID-19’s silver lining: Embracing technology in healthcare
Working with international and local partners, Sheba developed more than 40 inventions in two-and-a-half months and is now engaged in close to 200 projects that center around coronavirus.
By MAAYAN JAFFE-HOFFMANPanel: How 2030 Digital Health Tech is Defeating COVID 19 in 2020(photo credit: JERUSALEM POST)
The healthcare community has been dappling in telemedicine – the remote diagnosis and treatment of patients by means of telecommunications technology – for most of the last decade. But according to healthcare leaders from Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hal Shomer, the coronavirus crisis has forced hospitals and doctors to embrace these new technologies.SHEEBA“We knew that medicine had to move into the home and that hospitalizations had to move home,” said Dr. Eyal Zimlichman, deputy director-general, chief medical officer and chief innovation officer at Sheba Medical Center on Tuesday, during The Jerusalem Post’s virtual conference. “But when patients are at their homes and cannot go to the hospital, then either we don’t take care of them or we examine them from afar.’Zimlichman said that the coronavirus was incredibly challenging on hospital staff, but at the same time he started seeing them “embracing telemedicine that was difficult to do before.”But it was more than that. When the coronavirus pandemic started, “it was not clear what role innovation would play,” Zimlichman recalled. “We even had some thoughts that the innovation team would need to work from home or take a leave of absence. But we quickly understood that innovation would be critical because we are talking about something, we knew nothing about.”Working with international and local partners, Sheba developed more than 40 inventions in two-and-a-half months and is now engaged in close to 200 projects that center around coronavirus.For example, together with one of the IDF’s Military Intelligence Directorate’s Technological Unit, help convert simple breath regulating devices into respirators, which are used by first responders to help people with light respiratory distress breath more effectively.“We were all worried we would not have enough ventilators,” Zimlichman said, noting that the new device was developed in the record time of about one month. Now, Sheba is working to patent and mass market these machines to countries in need. The hospital has 100 in a warehouse “that we hope we will never need,” he said.Dr. Galia Barkai, head of Sheba's ARC Telemedicine hub, expressed similar sentiments. While she said that we are in the “second wave” of COVID-19 and it is not going away, she said that she does see a silver lining in the challenges the world has faced and will likely continue to face for at least another year.“Coronavirus has been a great opportunity to remove many obstacles and promote quick innovation,” she said. “Now people will embrace new technologies that will allow us to reach many more people and allow more people to receive even better care.”
