الصحة

Yashar! for Health

• •The Yashar! party will act to strengthen the health system and turn it into a system based on forward-looking, needs-based planning. We will lead the health system from a state of shortage and crisis management to forward-looking management, which includes making full use of and pooling resources, narrowing the gaps between the periphery and the center, and embedding innovation and preventive medicine at every stage of life.

Getting on the Straight Path!

• •The Yashar! party will act to strengthen the advantages of the Israeli health system and to build on them an advanced, equal and durable system. We will lead forward-looking planning based on the population's needs, and will act in parallel to increase the workforce and the professions in the system, to narrow the gaps between the center and the periphery, to improve quality of life alongside improving life expectancy, to embed advanced technologies and promote the use of digitization and artificial intelligence in work processes, to strengthen community medicine and preventive medicine, to urgently address the dangerous crisis in rehabilitative medicine and mental health, and to develop the health system as an engine of growth and build readiness for emergency challenges.
• •These steps will ensure not only the system's survival but also its strengthening and growth. This investment will provide the infrastructure for a high-quality, accessible and equal public health system, able to cope with changing needs, to offer a comprehensive response to demographic and social challenges, and to strengthen its resilience in the face of national crises and states of emergency.

Long-term planning and emergency preparedness

• •Managing the health system and its resources with a long-term view that ensures a response to demographic and epidemiological needs over time, with emphasis on training medical workforce in the required numbers, preventing a 'brain drain' and encouraging the absorption of those who return, and narrowing the gaps in health services between different regions and different populations.
• •The Israeli health system is required to provide excellent routine medicine to all its residents while being prepared for prolonged, multi-system emergencies, including wars and missile attacks, epidemics, and extreme weather events and earthquakes, with emphasis on functional and treatment continuity.

Strengthening community medicine and preventive medicine

• •Community medical services are the link between the health system and the patient throughout the life cycle, and they should be the center of gravity of prevention, early diagnosis, continuous care and promotion of a healthy lifestyle. This is alongside shifting the systems' focus from treatment and hospitalization to prevention and maintaining a healthy lifestyle on an ongoing basis.

Strategic planning and emergency preparedness

• •We will promote strategic planning for the health system, which will ensure that current and future health needs are weighed together with the capabilities available to it in managing and allocating resources. As part of this, we will anchor the considerations of the demographic index and the technological coefficient in the regular update of the health basket, and lead the formulation of a strategic plan for the system that will ensure the distribution of resources according to changing needs, with stable funding sources and financial management and readiness for crisis events, including maintaining treatment continuity.
• •We will act to increase the health system's readiness for various emergencies, as part of the strategic planning and based on the lessons of the Covid crisis and the war. As part of this, we will set binding standards for holding stocks of medicines and medical equipment, promote a binding plan for fortifying medical facilities and infrastructure, and work to improve treatment continuity in wartime.
• •We will strengthen the capabilities for monitoring and control of outbreaks of diseases and epidemics, with emphasis on early detection and mapping of risk areas and at-risk populations, in order to prevent in advance the spread of disease in the population and to prepare the system for the best possible handling of health crises.
• •We will work to renovate existing buildings and build new buildings in hospitals, in order to ensure proper, respectful hospitalization conditions adapted to patients' needs, while adapting the infrastructure to technological developments and advanced medicine. We will work to create diverse funding sources and to reduce dependence on philanthropy.

Increasing the health system's workforce and bringing back talent

• •We will lead strategic, long-term planning for managing the health system's workforce. As part of this, we will map the medical workforce and identify future failures (such as professions that currently lack enough residents, or regions of the country with too few doctors in a particular profession), and on the basis of this mapping we will update workforce staffing standards in line with population growth, and ensure that the new positions reach the departments to which they were assigned. In addition, we will continue implementing the national plan to double the number of medical students in Israel and work to remove barriers that make it hard to expand the clinical fields. We will work to add positions for residents and specialists in hospitals, to integrate medical students into the system and in line with the increase in the number of students.
• •We will examine expanding the authorities and specializations of various roles in the health system, in particular specialist nurse and physician assistant roles, in order to reduce the burden currently placed on doctors, while maintaining high professional standards. We will promote an updated staffing key for the health professions (physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, medical technology, etc.), with an understanding that their work is critical to improving patient care.
• •We will work to improve the employment conditions of medical teams, including improving the physical work environment and embedding technological aids. We will allocate the resources needed to increase security in hospitals and protect medical staff from violence.
• •We will work to improve the conditions of residency in the medical professions, to regulate them, and to improve employment conditions during residency.
• •We will work to stop the 'brain drain' from the health system. As part of mapping the workforce in the system, we will also identify risk factors for leaving and make sure the system acts in advance to prevent it. We will promote maintaining a professional connection with medical personnel who go abroad for further training and guarantee an employment prospect after returning to Israel. We will operate a national program to bring back Israeli doctors, which will create an employment prospect for returning doctors, remove bureaucratic barriers involved in the move and promote quick recognition of degrees and certificates from leading institutions in developed countries, and provide support and guidance to the returning doctors and their family members.
• •In addition, and as part of encouraging innovation in the health system, we will work to create combined care and research positions that will allow doctors protected time for research (Protected Research Time) within their medical work in the health system, which will increase the incentive to return to Israel.

Empowerment and efficiency through digitization, technology and artificial intelligence

• •We will promote the expansion of digital services in the health system, including remote medicine services (telemedicine) and home use of digital aids through the health funds, in order to expand access to medical treatment in routine and in emergencies, and to ease the diagnosis of medical conditions and direct communication with the treating teams.
• •We will promote the unified digital medical record, which will include all the information from the health funds, the hospitals and other bodies providing medical treatment. The unified medical record will serve as a 'decision-support record', will improve treatment continuity between hospitals and the community, will prevent critical information gaps between the different medical teams, will make it easier for patients to deal with bureaucracy, and will enable the best advancement of patient safety.
• •We will open the way to embedding innovative technologies in the health system. We will anchor the technological coefficient of the health basket in legislation and ensure that it includes a defined component for software and artificial intelligence technologies, which will ensure budgeting for embedding new technologies. We will remove bureaucratic and regulatory barriers that prevent the addition of advanced imaging equipment, and shorten the waiting lists for it. We will update the pricing regulations for the health funds and hospitals so that they are also budgeted for technological products (such as subscription fees or software licenses) and are compensated on the basis of results – so that a reduction in hospitalization days and morbidity thanks to technology will not lead to a budget cut but will contribute to the system. We will incorporate managerial and organizational value considerations (such as patient experience, reducing the load of bureaucratic actions for the doctor, and shortening waiting lists) in the assessment of the benefit of new technologies. We will ensure that dedicated bodies operate within the health system to embed technologies, which will help reduce the bureaucratic burden placed on the medical teams and optimize treatment decisions.
• •We will strengthen research within the health system by allocating dedicated budgets for research, removing existing regulatory barriers that limit cooperation between the various health organizations, research institutions and industry, creating a digital infrastructure for direct communication between researchers and the health system, which will make it easier to carry out studies, and examining the addition of combined care and research positions, which will also allow treating doctors protected time for research (Protected Research Time). We will promote the use of the large amount of data in the system, to advance research and patient care.

Strengthening community medicine and shortening waiting times

• •We will work to establish community medical centers – clinics that will provide various medical services to the insured of all the health funds, including treatments and tests that are in the basket and in the supplementary insurance, as well as elective treatments that are currently given only in hospitals. These clinics will have a double advantage: pooling resources that are currently in short supply, mainly in the periphery, which will enable more competition between the funds – each fund will not need to hold all these services itself everywhere in the country; and alongside this, they will reduce the load on the hospitals, because the elective treatments will be moved to them. The clinics may be public (jointly owned by the Ministry of Health and local authorities) or private – in any case the insured will receive the service as part of their health fund insurance.
• •We will encourage measures to shorten waiting times in the health system, using technological means for optimal planning and management of appointments, examining a payment obligation in the case of failing to show up for a scheduled appointment, and abolishing the community service coordinators, who have not been proven to be an effective factor in shortening waiting times for the general population. In place of the service coordinator mechanism that exists today, we will create a similar mechanism dedicated to chronic patients and people with disabilities, who need continuous communication with the health system, both for treatment purposes and for bureaucratic needs. In addition, we will work to create tailored solutions for senior citizens, who make up a significant share of the health system's users, to help them schedule appointments efficiently.
• •We will work to abolish preferences and benefits of a sectoral and political nature and ensure equality in access to and ownership of medical services, in particular in the supplementary insurance (Shaban) mechanisms and the service coordinators.
• •We will promote dedicated solutions for at-risk populations, which will allow these patients to receive medical services in the community in a sterile manner and will reduce the fear of infection.

Preventive medicine in all areas of life

• •We will expand preventive medicine programs, including mapping at-risk populations and proactive outreach for screening tests, education for health literacy and preventing disinformation and manipulative marketing, as well as focused programs in preventive pediatric medicine that include education for a healthy lifestyle from a young age, making information and guidance accessible to parents, and restoring immunization coverage.
• •We will promote embedding the 'Health in All Policies' approach (Health In All Policies), under which public health considerations should be weighed in formulating policy in every field. As part of this, we will examine adopting the 'Health Lens' model (Health Lense Analysis), which includes a professional team that supports all government ministries and helps them examine the effects of strategic decisions on public health, and we will also examine integrating public health reviews into planning decision processes. In addition, we will reinstate the tax on sweetened drinks, recognizing the health harms caused by these beverages and in light of the tax's success in reducing their consumption.
• •We will strengthen the role of local authorities in promoting public health and preventive medicine, by establishing health units in the authorities, which will work together with the health funds and the Ministry of Health, help collect and process data, and support making information and services adapted to the local community accessible.

Mental health and rehabilitation

• •We will increase investment in mental health services and work to expand the existing supply of treatment, in order to respond effectively to the growing need for psychological treatment following the war. We will emphasize measuring and monitoring mental health services not only in financial terms, but also by the success of treatments – how many patients returned to functioning and which treatment methods they used. On the basis of these indicators we will draw lessons, update policy and make necessary changes in real time.
• •We will promote a national program for building resilience and preventing states of stress, which will make preventive treatments for post-traumatic disorders accessible through routine frameworks: schools, the IDF, reserve duty, academia and workplaces. In addition, we will ensure continued support and psychological treatment for every discharged soldier if he or she needs it, in order to prevent post-trauma and save bureaucratic procedures. For more, see the Yashar! plan for Growth from Crisis and Building National Resilience.
• •We will promote and expand the physical rehabilitation tracks and improve their quality, with emphasis on rehabilitation tracks for male and female fighters who were wounded during the war.

An aging population and health for the third age

• •We will work to continue raising life expectancy while emphasizing the quality of life of the elderly and maintaining function and independence alongside optimal treatment of diseases. We will examine updating the capitation for medical services for the third age, lengthening the visit between patients and the treating doctor, ensuring optimal, tailored nutrition and adapting medical care – with tailored attention to elderly people with different levels of function.
• •We will work to strengthen stability and certainty in the existing long-term care system and examine imposing a long-term care insurance obligation on the entire population, in order to ensure long-term care for senior citizens in the future as well. We will work to make supportive solutions accessible to family members of senior citizens who need long-term care and are mentally frail, with emphasis on emotional support, coping with medical conditions and exercising rights.
• •We will ensure quality medical care for senior citizens, both through prevention and through appropriate treatment. We will strengthen the medical and long-term care solutions at home and in the community, and promote early diagnosis programs and a systemic response to diseases typical of the third age. We will make sure that geriatric medical care is adjusted to the growth in the population, including increasing the number of geriatric hospital beds, including rehabilitation beds. We will work to expand the use of advanced technologies, including remote medicine, to increase the availability of a medical response at home as well.

Reducing inequality and growth

• •Strengthening public medicine in Israel and a proper regional distribution of the health system's resources – services, infrastructure and workforce – that will ensure equal access to quality care throughout the country, regardless of place of residence or socio-economic status. In addition, combining Israel's advantage in health, research and innovation and leveraging it into an ecosystem that connects the health system, academia, industry and the business sector will provide a foundation for the growth of startups, encouraging investment and economic growth, particularly in the periphery.

Equal health in the periphery and the center

• •We will move the health system in the periphery from a state of permanent shortage to a smart regional distribution that gives residents basic medical security and quality of life. As part of this, we will set a service time (SLA) and a binding standard for the provision of health services by the health funds, including a budgetary sanction, and we will ensure quality primary and secondary medicine by attracting specialist doctors, including a family absorption package, retention grants and more. We will establish forward emergency-triage centers, strengthen community clinics and develop emergency solutions for areas where the time to reach a hospital may cost lives.
• •We will establish a forward emergency-triage center in Kiryat Shmona and examine the establishment of hospitals and medical centers of various types in the periphery, in both the north and the south, and strengthen around them community medical services, training, research and medical infrastructure, in order to expand the regional distribution and enable higher-quality and more accessible care for residents of the north.