Nine Reasons Why Israel Leads the World in Vaccine Distribution

1. Universal healthcare

Universal health care has existed since Israel before the establishment of the state and has remained a valuable factor ever since. According to Dr Dorit Nitzan, Director of Emergencies for the World Health Organization, the coronavirus pandemic has proven that this type of care is the key to managing the health crisis.

According to Ran Balicer, Head of Innovation for Clalit Health Services and Chairman of the National Expert Advisory Panel to the Government on COVID-19, it is very important to vaccinate against the virus.

As part of a universal care offer, the main types of care are provided free of charge to citizens, including general practitioner, urgent hospitalization, laboratory work and vaccination.

“The system revolves around the intimate connection between cradle and grave between citizens and their healthcare provider,” Balicer said, adding that GPs have a list of people for whom they feel responsible in health and disease, which is critical to the to reach land. elderly and chronically ill and get them into their funds to vaccinate.

According to Tamar Fishman-Magen, a registered nurse and a member of the Meuhedet Health Maintenance Nursing Division, this is proof that we have been waiting so long – the importance of medical services in the community. ‘

2. People trust their sickness funds

In an era where about 62% of the population does not trust its prime minister, it is striking, according to the Israel Democracy Institute, to know that 90% of Israelis, according to a 2020 survey conducted by Myers-JDC-Brookdale done, are satisfied with their sickness funds.

Only about 1% of Israelis annually choose to switch to an alternative health fund, although that is easy to do, Balicer said.

“It tells you something about the level of trust and infrastructure that has been built over the years,” he said.

3. A focus on preventive care

Care funds are set up to ensure that their clients take care of themselves and not just heal after they get sick. Some health experts suggest that one of the reasons why the mortality rate for coronavirus was lower in Israel than in other countries is because there are fewer untreated and undiagnosed chronic diseases in the country.

In Israel, sickness funds are paid by an age-adjusted amount per capita for each member, but not by services rendered. As such, much emphasis is placed on preventative, proactive care and outreach, and clients are accustomed to hearing about their sickness funds.

Clalit, for example, has used predictive models, advanced big-data analysis, and artificial intelligence to identify patients before they become ill and provide them with preventative care so that they will not experience actual diagnoses or symptoms of an illness. This year, even before the coronavirus vaccine, Clalit used these mechanisms to provide flu vaccines to patients at greatest risk for complications, Balicer said.

4. Israel knows emergencies

“We are like sprinters,” said Arnon Afek, deputy director general of the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer. “Israel knows how to mobilize.”

He recalled how Israel was on the ground in a massive earthquake in Haiti in 2010 within 48 hours and already operated a sophisticated field hospital even before the Americans arrived there.

“We’re used to working in an emergency,” Balicer said. “Our four sickness funds have been used to move quickly, to respond immediately to emergencies and to give complex assignments to many staff.”

In short, Israel knows how to get things done.

5. Many people work for the sickness funds

Clalit is the largest employer in Israel with more than 45,000 workers. According to the Leumit Health Care Services website, the fund employs 2,000 specialists from its tens of thousands of staff.

Balicer has this enormous manpower – a clinic in every neighborhood in the country from north to south – that gives the health funds a lot of power.

6. This is not the first time that many people have been vaccinated

As such, the funds, according to Ido Hadari, director of communications and government of Maccabi Healthcare Services, had the infrastructure in place to largely make the coronavirus vaccination campaign take place.

“To make appointments for vaccination, to inform you or to remind you that you have an appointment tomorrow, to understand why you did not come, to make the second appointment for the second dose during the first to set up interaction – we make it seem very simple, “he said.

For this particular vaccination campaign, it was important for the funds to separate the healthy patients who were for vaccination from those who were ill, which means that separate vaccination compounds had to be established.

Maccabi had made 85 connections across the country, but according to Hadari, they had only had a training session a few months before.

“In regular years, we give the flu vaccine in the clinic,” he said. “But this winter, with coronavirus, we started giving flu shots outside of most of it in the same compounds we now use for COVID.”

The sickness funds have a scientific process. Maccabi knows it takes seven minutes to vaccinate someone, so it makes appointments every seven minutes, with an extra lock that is free to cater for the unexpected, so they are not in arrears, Hadari said.

‘My husband and I have [the vaccine] via Maccabi at the Shlomo Arena in Tel Aviv, ”Shelley Goldman wrote last week in a Facebook response to a query about her vaccination by The Jerusalem Post. “Everything was very well organized.”

‘Was by Haturim [in Jerusalem], ”Wrote another respondent, Deborah Lustig. “Not waiting at all. No pressure. Super impressed. ”

There is also the challenge of avoiding vaccine loss; each vaccine dose costs Israel approximately NIS 100, or NIS 200 per person. According to Balicer, Israel had to destroy less than 0.1% of its doses.

Although the funds are well organized according to the appointments, as Hadari explained, each Pfizer vial contains five to six doses, and if a bottle is opened at the end of the day to vaccinate two patients, the funds are flexible. enough to reach out to people who do not have appointments and invite them.

7. Data and technology

The health funds all work with computerized records that keep data safe and without disclosing private details to the Ministry of Health to track the progress of the vaccine campaign and the side effects or other information provided by those who receive it.

“Israel has a technical advantage,” Afek told the Post.

Although there is no contract with Pfizer to share data, he assumes that the company ‘saw the possibility of Israel not only vaccinating, but monitoring whether people have side effects and realizing that Israel has a international experimental arena can be to see quickly and quickly. effective vaccination of the public … For any business it is so valuable. ”

But this data also works for the patients, Fishman-Magen said.

The personalized medical records of the funds span 50, 60 and 70 years, and doctors and other appropriate medical professionals can quickly ensure that patients who are vaccinated have no contraindications or problems that could cause the vaccines.

8. Communication

The country not only launched its campaign, but along with the health funds and hospitals launched a widespread TV, radio and newspaper campaign that encouraged people to take the vaccine, Fishman-Magen noted.

“We took the time to explain the scientific evidence,” he said. ‘I personally went to important sessions with the haredi [ultra-Orthodox] community and had long conversations with their leadership until we had a rabbinic ruling that vaccines are safe and that they should be sought. ”

The country’s understanding of the need for a lot of cultural competence and targeted messages is effective, he said.

According to Fishman-Magen, “Before the campaign started, we only let about 40% of the population know that they would be vaccinated, and other percentages said they might not be interested. Now we see that everyone is interested, and we need to prioritize. ”

9. The spirit of the people of Israel

In the end, it comes down to the people, Afek said.

The health workers, who first worked hours to work extra hours to ensure people were vaccinated, he said.

But also the general public.

“You can have all the staff ready and trained and available, but if the public does not work together, it can not be done,” Hadari said.

“We really feel the public has been waiting for this holiday like a hope come true,” he added.

Hadari recalls how as a child during the First Lebanon War, when he lived in a town in the North, when a helicopter would land near the town, he ran out with cakes and juice to thank the soldiers.

“Now the people are bringing our staff pizza and burgers and fruit bowls,” he said. ‘We now feel like the soldiers, and the public really gives us that warm hug. The public is really grateful. ”