Promoting Meaningful Use of Health Information Technology in Israel: Ministry of Health Vision

The Ministry of Health (MOH) of Israel has overall responsibility for the healthcare system. In recent years the MOH has developed strong capabilities in the areas of technology assessment and prioritization of new technologies. Israel completed the transition to computerized medical records a decade ago in most care settings; however, the processes in Israel was spontaneous, without government control and standards settings, therefore large variations among systems and among organizations were created. Currently, the main challenge is to convert the information scattered in different systems, to organized, visible information and to make it available to various levels in health management. The MOH's solution is of implementing a selected information system from a specific vendor, at all the hospitals and all HMO's clinics, in order to achieve interoperability. The system will enable access to the patient's medical record history from any location.