It is ironic that conferences on best practice in healthcare are dominated by Americans – the people who have the world’s most dysfunctional healthcare system. Israel and Taiwan are much better bets. So how do they do it?

After all, Israel in 2016 spent just 7% of GDP on healthcare, compared to 17% in the USA, yet has 2 years better life expectancy. In the decade to 2011, its healthcare expenditure increased by just 1.3% a year, against the OECD average of 4.1%.

A major part of this is down to how healthcare is dispensed by four big integrated payor/providers. The largest, Clalit, serves 4.2m. It has had first class electronic patient records for well over a decade and so has built really effective integrated care. It also has really high quality, patient data sets. This golden seam is one reason why Israeli start-ups are so strong in AI in healthcare.

Here are two great videos from Prof. Dr. Ran Balicer, director of the Clalit Research Institute. One covers integrated care and the other artificial intelligence. Both are well worth watching.