Healthcare startup pilot program in Israel
Israeli Ministry of Health is promoting technological innovation and fostering entrepreneurship spirit in healthcare sector through different pilot programs. With the recently launched program, the amount of government support will reach NIS 100 million a year over five years.
The Ministry of Health in Israel is working day and night to see the health sector is able to do everything needed and give its citizen the best health care. The government wants to ensure that the health sector has been digitalized to ensure efficiency when dealing with patients.
The digital health initiative will help in promoting advanced solutions and then implementing them, which will improve health services and medical treatment. The eHealth infrastructure is said to help in solving challenges faced by medical staff. The Israeli’s ministry of health has partnered with Israel Innovation Authority to see there is an investment made in the health sector for piloting digital healthcare or MedTech technologies.
The capital they are planning to use annually is around $8.5 million in the coming three years. The pilot programs will be carried out in all healthcare organizations that are interested in pilot facilities and development proposals.
These companies will be given 20-50$ of the approved R&D expenditures. The ministry will use state-owned infrastructure when piloting the program. The $ 8.5 million will be used in trying out technologies within the country to make accessing of data easy. This will make Israel the global leader when it comes to digital health technologies.
The medical staff will be able to speed up specialization of products and give them the opportunity to penetrate in the industry and test their products used in health organizations.
The cash will be released according to the technologies that are used to develop the sector, the challenges they are facing and the potential for growth.
Despite the privacy concerns, the government has approved the piloting project, and released files to researchers which might tamper with patients’ privacy.
In an interview, Ravit Warsha Dor who is the head of innovation at the health ministry’s digital health department said “the program is intended to help Israeli startups overcome one of the toughest hurdles, which is reaching the first client”. Sagi Dagan who is the head of the growing division at Israeli innovation Authority, when talking to Calcalist on a Sunday interview added “the authority wants to enable companies to test their products at the earliest opportunity, in partnership with Israeli’s health maintenance organizations and Israeli medical corps”.
The first institutions to start participating in the program will be given 20-50% total cash to be used in expenses regarding development and research. After working on the first phase, the ones with developing technologies that will show potential in improving and advancing the health care in Israel will be added a total of 60-75%.
If the companies participating in these programs reach the commercial stage they will start paying royalties to the authority but before then they will not be required to pay anything.
This eventually will make the health sector in Israeli to rise and be recognized in the world as one of the best health sectors.
Image credit: www.theaustralian.com.au/
