Israeli remote medicine applications are changing the future: IMPROVATE Life-Saving Technologies Conference

Defense sensor technologies used to create system that can monitor vital signs from a distance; touchless camera-free sensor monitors the elderly for falls; and hand-held ultrasound scanner enables home diagnosis

TEL AVIV, Israel, July 29, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading health professionals from Israel and around the world, government officials and top Israeli med-tech companies discussed the exciting future of medicine in diverse fields such as bioengineering and cell therapy, remote medicine, the use of artificial intelligence and big data, and more, at the IMPROVATE Life-Saving Technologies conference.

Watch the conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVXG6xOEUcY

Among the speakers at the conference were Israel's Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology, Orit Farkash Hacohen; Dr. Andrei Baciu, Secretary of State within the Romanian Ministry of Health; and Rosen Plevneliev, former president of Bulgaria. Leading health experts included Prof. Roni Gamzu, Director of the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center; Prof. Ze'ev Rotstein, Director of Hadassah Medical Center, Jerusalem; Nikolay Hadjidontchev, General Manager of Teva Pharmaceuticals, Bulgaria;  Dr. Galia Barkai,  Director of Sheba Beyond, Sheba Medical Center's  Virtual Hospital; Dr. Cristina Berteanu, Director of the Neolife Medical Center,  Bucharest, Romania; Milena Stoycheva, a Bulgarian Entrepreneur and Educator;  Dr. Yossi Bahagon, a Serial Med-tech Entrepreneur and VC; Bareket Knafo, Head of Israel's Economic and Trade Mission to Romania and Ukraine; and Dr. Laurentia Nicoletta  Gales, Associate Professor of Oncology at Bucharest's "Carol Davila" University of Medicine and Pharmacy.

Companies represented at the conference: MDA-NET, IAI Elta Systems, G-medical, Telesofia, Patho-Logica, Innocan Pharma, BioLight Life Sciences, Imedis, Sivan, Rithem Life Sciences, Kadimastem, Pulsenmore, Vayyar, Healables, Precise-Bio, Enlivex Therapeutics, and Hospikol.

Prof. Ze'ev Rotstein, Director of Hadassah Medical Center, addressed the conference on how better data creates better care.

"We are on the verge of being able to constantly monitor patients 24 hours a day - in modern countries - and using AI to interpret this data, and this is exactly the difference between life and death," Rotstein said. "Big data is enormously important. Big data is not only the clinical data of the patients, but we are deepening our understanding of all the genomics. We know how to perform full gene diagnostics, we know how to perform next generation sequencing of the data, we can collect data on risk groups, and we can provide better or earlier diagnostics to prevent disease or at least detect disease early on in order to be able to treat it." 

Prof. Ronni Gamzu, director of the Sourasky Medical Center in Tel Aviv, said the future of medicine lies in a convergence of all scientific disciplines.

"Biology, mathematics, physics - they are all connected. The future is convergence," said Gamzu. "We cannot go ahead with silos and silos. We have great minds, we have a great culture of hi-tech and start-up companies, great minds that are reinventing everything - not only medicine, but technology and the internet. All of that can be and should be converged in a way that we reinvent the way that we understand things, confront challenges and progress with therapies. This is what medicine is going to look like in the future. Not only classical medicine, but a convergence of all sciences to rebuild the future."

Israel's Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, Orit Farkash Hacohen said that Israel's advanced health data records had given it a huge advantage in the coronavirus vaccination roll-out and looking to the future the fact that Israel has the world's second-largest database of health records was a huge asset for the health, technology and academic communities. 

"We need to continue to exploit our data and combine it with genetic data and so on, and connect the data with the academic and scientific communities so that they can access it, Farkash Hacohen said. "At the same time, we also need to create a regulatory framework that will on the one hand provide access to the technological and academic communities to these health records and on the other hand will safeguard the privacy of each citizen that is part of this database." 

Dr. Andrei Baciu, Secretary of State within the Romanian Ministry of Health described the Israeli healthcare sector as one of the leading in the world in terms of digitalization, and said there were strong opportunities for cooperation between the two countries, especially between Israel's healthcare sector and Romania's IT sector where he said a "powerful marriage" could be created.

"We have to identify common goals and start building bridges for our patients at a regional and global level," Baciu said. "At the end of the day, any and every breakthrough in digital healthcare is going to help the patient community worldwide. It is important to find common projects with very specific goals and from that point on it is only a matter of time to get competitive results at a global level."

Former Bulgarian President and IMPROVATE advisory board member Rosen Plevneliev said the European market holds huge opportunities for Israeli companies.

"The European Union has amazing potential because of the sheer size of its market, and the opportunity to really transform technology standards for 27 countries with over 500 million people living with the same regulations and standards."

IMPROVATE co-founder and CEO Ronit Hasin Hochman said: The conference showed how Israel is at the forefront of medical technology and is able to improve lives around the world, something that is very much in line with IMPROVATE's mission.

MDA-NET combines the knowledge and experience accumulated in Israel in the field of disaster preparedness and response and medical emergencies with the advanced and innovative technology of the start-up nation. The company implements a comprehensive solution for improving and streamlining work processes in PSAPs through integration of data and systems, integration of media and AI.

ELTA Systems, a group and subsidiary of Israel Aerospace Industries, one of Israel's leading defense and technology companies, presented TAMAR, a modular solution developed from defense and advanced sensor technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic at the request by the Israeli government. TAMAR remotely measures at safe distances and with a high level of accuracy a person's vital signs such as body temperature.

GMedical develops and markets medical-grade health monitoring solutions to healthcare providers and consumers. The company is involved in four verticals: R&D of mobile remote patient monitoring technologies In Israel; Remote Patient Monitoring Centers in the United States; Big data and A.I analytics.

Vayyar Home is a unique touchless, camera-free solution for the elderly enhancing wellbeing either at home or in senior care facilities. The platform gathers rich data that supports instant fall detection and 24/7 activity monitoring - without cameras, buttons, cords or wearables - identifying signs of deteriorating physical or mental health, improving dementia care, and delivering timely interventions that save lives.

HEALABLES.IO is a digital health company devoted to reducing the burden of inflammatory illness and chronic pain.  It leverages AI and e-textiles to deliver a synergy of bioelectric therapy and behavioral health that will redefine state-of-the-art care and make it accessible via telemedicine.

Pulsenmore has developed a handheld at-home ultrasound scanner that allows high quality images to be created anywhere, forwarded for clinical review or streamed to a doctor as part of an online consultation.

Telesofia Medical improves patient outcomes using auto-generated videos that are personalized based on demographic and clinical data.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVXG6xOEUcY
Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1584181/IMPROVATE_Co_founder_and_CEO.jpg