In his lecture at the 32nd “Globes” Israel Business Conference, Prof. Yitshak Kreiss, CEO of Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer (Tel Hashomer Hospital), spoke about the hospital’s collaboration with US chips giant Nvidia. “Sheba has a dream of decoding the human genome. We have enough people and we have all the intellectual resources required, but we don’t have the budget. Mapping the entire genome is very expensive. We therefore decided to do it together with Nvidia.
“This is a ’little project’ that, if it succeeds, will enable us to map 98% of the DNA using artificial intelligence. This could help us to prevent diseases, to solve existing diseases, to develop drugs, and more.
“The AI revolution in healthcare is the greatest revolution since Hippocrates. There are those who will say otherwise, but in my opinion, AI could change the way we work in our field. Not much has changed in work methods in healthcare since the days of Hippocrates, and this is an opportunity for change. We have a roadmap for getting there, but this profession is very conservative – rightly so in many ways. Nevertheless, we must change. I already feel the change: people are starting to think differently, and I see less resistance, because most of the people in the profession understand that we can’t continue doing things they way they are done today.”
The paradox of the State of Israel
Kreiss, a specialist in internal medicine and a leading expert in accident and emergency medicine, devoted most of his lecture to the ability of the State of Israel to recover from crises, such as the tremendous crisis that struck on October 7 2023.
“I came here in order to try to explain the paradox of the State of Israel,” Kreiss said in his opening remarks. “A country in the worst disaster in its history, yet still managing to generate growth. Crisis don’t work out that way everywhere, but in Israel there are several vectors that make it possible, that can turn a crisis into a growth engine.
“One of these vectors is the culture of enterprise and innovation. It’s clear to everyone here in Israel that when you enter a crisis, when there’s an entrepreneurial spirit it’s possible to cope better with the situation, and it works the other way as well – someone who experiences a crisis will emerge with an entrepreneurial spirit.
“How is it that in the two years since the war broke out Israel has made its biggest exits ever? It’s hard to explain this spirit in other places. It happens among other things thanks to another vector that exists here – breaking of concepts. In my field, it’s a matter of turning the institutions from a fiscal burden into an economic growth engine. It was recently reported that Israel is at the bottom of the ranking of OECD countries for national spending on healthcare, so how is it that the systems are still so good? It’s because healthcare can also be a growth engine.”
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Kreiss stressed that all the elements of growth existed in the Israeli health system. “There are tends of thousands of doctors and researchers here, there are data, there are infrastructures that are among the most advanced in the world, patients, daring, chutzpa, the surrounding Israeli ecosystem with a startup mentality, and there are also connections to the world. If we take all this and use it in the right way, we’ll succeed in generating economic growth, in creating jobs. A good example of this is Sheba’s innovation arm, ARC Network, with 120 startup companies currently worth $5.8 billion. On October 7 they were worth $1.6 billion. We’re expanding and growing, and it doesn’t stop.”
The achievement of the Medical Corps
Prof Kreiss is a reserve IDF officer with the rank of brigadier general, and he was formerly the IDF’s chief medical officer, a post he held during Operation Protective Edge in the Gaza Strip in 2014. “In Israel’s hospitals, the life-saving rate is higher than 99%. If you reach hospital alive – whether you’re a soldier or a civilian – there’s a better than 99% chance that you will leave alive.”
This impressive figure, he says, is based on “a huge achievement of the Medical Corps,” that includes the introduction of new technologies, improvement in evacuation from the field, and more. “When I was chief medical officer in Operation Protective Edge the percentage was lower. Today they do it better. This too is a manifestation of an entrepreneurial spirit: they emerge from the crisis stronger and growing. This is also what will take us forward when we emerge from this crisis.”
Full disclosure: The Israel Business Conference is being held in cooperation with Bank Hapoalim and Phoenix Group and sponsored by, Bezeq, El Al, Tnuva, Electra, Armis, Haifa Group, Hamilton Lane Israel, Doral, Shikun & Binui, BlackRock, Bazan, Pagaya, KPMG, Nespresso, Egged, Zeekr, ICL and the Israel Medical Association, and with the participation of Israel Ports. Co., Mekorot, Ashdod Port, and the Israel Innovation Authority.
Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on November 23, 2025.
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2025.
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