Israel: health system review
Other Titles
Abstract
Israel is a small country, with just over 8 million citizens and a modernmarket-based economy with a comparable level of gross domestic productper capita to the average in the European Union. It has had universal healthcoverage since the introduction of a progressively financed statutory healthinsurance system in 1995. All citizens can choose from among four competing,non-profit-making health plans, which are charged with providing a broadpackage of benefits stipulated by the government.Overall, the Israeli health care system is quite efficient. Health status levelsare comparable to those of other developed countries, even though Israelspends a relatively low proportion of its gross domestic product on health care(less than 8%) and nearly 40% of that is privately financed. Factors contributingto system efficiency include regulated competition among the health plans, tightregulatory controls on the supply of hospital beds, accessible and professionalprimary care and a well-developed system of electronic health records. Israelihealth care has also demonstrated a remarkable capacity to innovate, improve,establish goals, be tenacious and prioritize.Israel is in the midst of numerous health reform efforts. The healthinsurance benefits package has been extended to include mental health careand dental care for children. A multipronged effort is underway to reduce healthinequalities. National projects have been launched to measure and improve thequality of hospital care and reduce surgical waiting times, along with greaterpublic dissemination of comparative performance data. Major steps are alsobeing taken to address projected shortages of physicians and nurses.One of the major challenges currently facing Israeli health care is thegrowing reliance on private financing, with potentially deleterious effectsfor equity and efficiency. Efforts are currently underway to expand publicfinancing, improve the efficiency of the public system and constrain the growthof the private sector.
Citation
World Health Organization. Regional Office for Europe, European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, Rosen, Bruce, Waitzberg, Ruth & Merkur, Sherry (2015). Israel: health system review. World Health Organization. Regional Office for Europe. https://iris.who.int/handle/10665/330248
Journal
Relation
Relation
Health Systems in Transition, vol. 17 (6)
Temporal Coverage
Statement of Responsibility
Description
212 p.
Table of Contents
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Sponsorship
PMID
PMCID
Document number
ISBN
ISSN
1817-6127
ISMN
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Other Identifiers
Format
Language
English