​(Communicated by the Prime Minister's Media Adviser)
 
The Cabinet this morning (Sunday, 25 March 2016), passed a decision launching the national digital health plan. Approximately NIS 1 billion has been budgeted for the plan which includes technological development, international cooperation, concentrated academic and industrial efforts and regulatory changes to encourage data research. The extensive plan is a product of a joint effort by the Prime Minister's Office and the ministries of Finance, Health, Social Equality, Economy, and Science and Technology. The Innovation Authority and the Council for Higher Education were also involved.
 
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:
 
"We are doing something of historic significance. We are developing the industries of tomorrow. In effect these are the industries of today. They are based on a combination of three things: Very large databases, artificial intelligence and connectivity.This has a greater potential than cyber. It is gigantic, greater than transportation, which is also a gigantic field. This field of digital health estimated at $6 trillion. Let us assume that we will receive 10% of the real market for this potential, not our market, the real global market in the coming years. In my view, this is the maximum estimate. It is a $600 billion market and of it, if we succeed, as we did in cyber and autonomous vehicles and our vehicle industry, we can expect here a significant increase in new products. What are the new products? Israel has a gigantic database that embraces almost the entire population, a large population relative to – let's say – the Baltic countries, one of which has one million people in this databank; we have almost nine million people. This is a focused databank of the health records of almost each and every one of us over the last two decades. This is a great asset and we want to make it available to researchers, developers and companies in order to receive two things: Preventive medicine and personal medicine, personally calibrated for each person.Of course, this depends on the agreement of each person – this right is maintained absolutely. We are achieving a breakthrough here on a global level. The interest of global companies is very great. I have already met with many of them. They all want to come here, and rightly so. They see this as a new direction."
 
Prime Minister's Office Director General Eli Groner:
 
"We all know that Israel is ranked relatively high in the world vis-à-vis health but what many people do not know is that relative to efficiency we are ranked even higher. We receive more return for every shekel we invest in health. The benefit that we achieve derives from that we have – first of all – a small and concentrated health system. The entire world comes here to study it. Also, several years ago we were wise enough to begin documenting medical information by means of digitization. Today this enables every doctor in Israel to see the clinical file of over 98% of the population. These are the advantages that have helped reach where we are today; we are injecting new momentum with this decision. We are using this concentration to unify the system and create a voluntary data bank that will draw researchers and industry here from around the world. We are upgrading the quality of the digital medical file so that future doctors will be able to make better diagnoses. We are certain that this decision will be of high importance."
 
The main projects planned in the context of the plan are:
 
Health
 
* Establishing the "Mosaic" initiative – A national information infrastructure initiative for health researchers in genetics and medical information. The initiative will include a community of volunteers who will contribute clinical and genomic information, as well as additional kinds of information regarding their health, and will constitute an infrastructure for the development of medical solutions that are coordinated personally and with in-depth big data analyses. The establishment of a research infrastructure will be advanced.
 
* Protective mechanisms will be set for the accessibility of personal information, while maintaining privacy, by means of information security and access permissions. It will be emphasized that participation in projects will be carried out on a voluntary basis and only after the participant has agreed.
 
* Improving existing medical registries and systems
 
* Establishing a digitized sample bank for research purposes, to serve the Mosaic initiative
 
* Developing accessible technological means for instilling innovative solutions in health organizations
 
* Developing tools to spur health organizations toward cooperation with academia and industry
 
* Advancing joint projects between the Israeli health system and world health systems
 
* Evaluating the establishment of an Israeli national center for genetic sequencing, for the study and analysis of samples
 
Technology and industry
                                  
* Increasing export-oriented marketing in digital health solutions and encouraging foreign companies to invest in Israel
 
* Israeli participation in the digital health projects of international financial institutions
 
* Encouraging companies and start0ups to carry out research and development in digital health
 
* Establishing technology innovation laboratories to strengthen cooperation between multi-national corporations and Israeli digital health companies
 
* Advancing cooperation agreements with international elements to support digital health research and development by Israeli companies
 
* Creating information science retraining plans in the digital health field
 
* Advancing digital health research that includes cooperation between researchers and health organizations
 
* Developing relevant digital academic courses in high-tech and information science