Articles

Strengthening the capacities of a national health authority in the effort to mitigate health inequity—the Israeli model

The need for a national policy to mitigate health inequity has been recognized in scientific research and policy papers around the world. Despite the moral duty and the social, medical, and economic logic behi...

Authors: Tuvia Horev and Shlomit Avni

Work experiences of ethnic minority nurses: a qualitative study

Recruitment and retention of a diverse ethnic workforce in healthcare settings contribute to the provision of culturally competent care in multicultural contexts. Nevertheless, the work experiences of ethnic m...

Authors: Yael Keshet and Ariela Popper-Giveon

Multi-faceted identities and interactions in mixed health teams

The literature in the area of the health workforce and societies in conflict encompasses a wide range of studies and potential directions. Lately, Keshet and Popper-Giveon reported on a study based on intervie...

Authors: Daniella Arieli and Miriam J. Hirschfeld

The role of knowledge transfer in health policymaking: the US experience

As Ellen et al. point out, there is room for improvement in knowledge transfer between academic research and policymaking. At the same time, retrospective analyses of health policy often identify research infl...

Authors: Sherry Glied

Physician-facilitated designation of proxy decision maker

With vast improvements in healthcare in recent decades, people are living longer but often with higher rates of morbidity and chronic illnesses. This has resulted in a higher proportion of the population who m...

Authors: Amit Arora, Laura Cummings and Peter Crome

Pre-exercise screening: role of the primary care physician

Participation in regular physical activity is associated with a multitude of benefits including a reduction in chronic disease and premature mortality, and improved quality of life. All segments of society nee...

Authors: Elizabeth A. Joy and Linda S. Pescatello

Decision-makers’ acquaintance with the public’s priorities in health services

Decision makers often assume they know the public’s standpoints and see themselves as capable of representing them.

Authors: Giora Kaplan and Orna Baron-Epel

Commentary on a smoke-free medical campus in Jerusalem: data for action

Over the past 30 years, Israel has made great progress in attitudes and practices about smoking; probably nothing else has contributed more to the health of its population. Yet, a recent survey about a non-smo...

Authors: Steven A. Schroeder

Views of health system policymakers on the role of research in health policymaking in Israel

The use of research evidence in health policymaking is an international challenge. Health systems, including that of Israel, are usually characterized by scarce resources and the necessity to make rapid policy...

Authors: Moriah E. Ellen, Einav Horowitz, Sharona Vaknin and John N. Lavis

Trends in the use of antipsychotics in the Israeli inpatient population, 2004–2013

Although serious mental illneses are treated with both typical and atypical antipsychotic grugs, trends in their use in psychiatric inpatient population in Israel are unrecognized. The aim of this study was to...

Authors: Alexander M. Ponizovsky, Eli Marom, Michal Ben-Laish, Igor Barash, Abraham Weizman and Eyal Schwartzberg

Factors affecting compliance with use of online healthcare services among adults in Israel

The use of online health services (henceforth, OHS) among middle-aged to older adults can make health-related actions more accessible to this population group as well as help reduce the burden on the health sy...

Authors: Shosh Shahrabani and Yonathan Mizrachi

Designing online health services for patients

Patients are increasingly interacting with their healthcare system through online health services, such as patient portals and telehealth programs. Recently, Shabrabani and Mizrachi provided data outlining fac...

Authors: Bradley H. Crotty and Warner V. Slack

Decision making about infertility treatment: does unlimited access lead to inappropriate treatment?

The proportion of women aged 40–44 undergoing IVF treatment covered by Maccabi Health Services increased between 2011 and 2014. Although age-specific birth rates did not substantially change over this time per...

Authors: Evan R. Myers

Expanding clinical roles for nurses to realign the global health workforce with population needs: a commentary

Many countries, including Israel, face health workforce challenges to meet the needs of their citizens, as chronic conditions increase. Provider shortages and geographical maldistribution are common. Increasin...

Authors: Claudia B. Maier and Linda H. Aiken

A smoke-free medical campus in Jerusalem: data for action

Establishing smoke-free environments is a major component of tobacco control policy. The introduction of a smoke-free policy in medical campuses may serve as a role model for other educational and health insti...

Authors: Itamar Feldman, Milka Donchin and Hagai Levine

Dealing with ambiguity: Israeli physician’s attitudes and practices regarding pre-exercise certificates: a questionnaire study

It has become clear in recent years that a healthy lifestyle, including physical exercise is crucial for health maintenance. Nevertheless, most people do not exercise regularly. Physician intervention is benef...

Authors: Robert D Hoffman, Ron Golan and Shlomo Vinker

Physician-facilitated designation of proxy decision-makers: family physician perceptions

Among the challenges encountered during the care of patients at the end-of-life (EOL), eliciting preferences of patients with whom there is no ability to communicate is common and stressful for all those conce...

Authors: Gideon Lifshitz, Matan J. Cohen, Hila Shmilovitz, Mayer Brezis, Amnon Lahad and Arie Ben-Yehuda

In Vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments in Maccabi Healthcare Services 2007-2014

Israel reports the world’s highest IVF cycles per capita. However, clinical outcome data of these treatments are scarce. In a previous publication, we summarized IVF results among Maccabi Healthcare Services m...

Authors: Shahar Kol, Lucia Bergovoy Yellin, Yaakov Segal and Avi Porath

Vaccine hesitancy as self-determination: an Israeli perspective

Vaccine hesitancy can be portrayed as a broad spectrum of phenomena, ranging from a genuine call for help to complete defiance of authorities. The emphasis here is made on mid-spectrum hesitancy; hesitancy as ...

Authors: Baruch Velan

The impact of facility characteristics on the use of antipsychotic medications in nursing homes: a cross-sectional study

Antipsychotic medications (APMs) are commonly prescribed in nursing homes (NHs) and their excessive use raises concerns about the quality of care. They are often seen as “chemical restraints”, and were shown t...

Authors: Dvora Frankenthal, Gisele Zandman-Goddard, Yael Ben-Muvhar and Bat Sheva Porat-Katz

Should Israel be concerned by the high proportion of medical care paid for privately: comments from a U.S. perspective

As a frequent visitor to Israel, I am keenly aware of the concerns of many Israelis that limits in government funding is forcing a high proportion of the country’s medical care to be paid by private sources. F...

Authors: Stuart Altman

Annual acknowledgement of manuscript reviewers

The Editors of Israel Journal of Health Policy Research would like to thank all reviewers, both external and Editorial Board Members, who have contributed to the journal in 2015, and whose valuable support contin...

Authors: Bruce Rosen and Avi Israeli

Energy drink consumption in Israeli youth: Public health & the perils of energetic marketing

In a recently published IJHPR article, Magnezi and colleagues add to our knowledge of consumption of energy drinks (ED), and alcohol mixed with energy drinks (AmED), by exploring these patterns among public sc...

Authors: David L. Katz

Improving access to essential health care services: the case of Israel

In a recent article in this journal Simon-Tuval, Horev and Kaplan argue that in order to improve the protection of consumers there might be a need to impose a threshold on the medical loss ratio (MLR) for volu...

Authors: Wynand P.M.M. van de Ven

Integration of advanced practice providers into the Israeli healthcare system

Many countries around the world have integrated various types of Advanced Practice Providers (APPs) into their healthcare systems. The main motivating factors for recognizing and developing APPs worldwide incl...

Authors: Eliana Marcus Aaron and Caryn Scheinberg Andrews

Erratum to: The burden of smoking in Israel–attributable mortality and costs (2014)

Authors: Gary M. Ginsberg and Haim Geva

How can we improve amniocentesis decision-making?

The decision to have an amniocentesis entails a trade-off between a risk of procedure associated miscarriage and the benefit of obtaining diagnostic information to identify Down syndrome or other chromosomal a...

Authors: Lisa Soleymani Lehmann

Vaccine hesitancy: understanding better to address better

Vaccine hesitancy is an emerging term in the socio-medical literature which describes an approach to vaccine decision making. It recognizes that there is a continuum between full acceptance and outright refusa...

Authors: Dewesh Kumar, Rahul Chandra, Medha Mathur, Saurabh Samdariya and Neelesh Kapoor

International publication trends and collaboration performance of China in healthcare science and services research

In recent years, China’s healthcare reforms and related studies have drawn particular global attention. The main objective of this study is to evaluate quantitatively the publication trends and collaboration p...

Authors: Kai Chen, Qiang Yao, Ju Sun, Zhi-fei He, Lan Yao and Zhi-yong Liu

Private finance of services covered by the National Health Insurance package of benefits in Israel

Private health expenditure in systems of national health insurance has raised concern in many countries. The concern is mainly about the accessibility of care to the poor and the sick, and inequality in use an...

Authors: Esti Engelchin-Nissan and Amir Shmueli

Models for projecting supply and demand for nurses in Israel

Concern is growing over serious shortages in the nursing workforce and imbalance between supply and demand. Projections indicate that the demand for the nursing workforce will increase due to the aging populat...

Authors: Nurit Nirel, Orli Grinstien-Cohen, Yonatan Eyal, Hadar Samuel and Assaf Ben-Shoham

Coming of age: pharmacy practice in the 21st century

Individuals, families, health plans and governments are struggling with the growing importance of managing chronic, non-communicable diseases. People in many countries are living longer and thus are facing man...

Authors: Donald F. Downing

The case of pharmacist prescribing policy in Israel

Pharmacy prescribing policy in Israel has been negotiated and changed in recent years in order to improve patient treatment and access to medicines, and reduce national health insurance costs by allowing pharm...

Authors: Hila Yariv

Procedures in pediatric primary care: first do no harm

Two important considerations arise from this IJHPR article from Zimmerman and colleagues. First, is the question regarding what can be considered a “common” procedure in primary care and whether the designatio...

Authors: Gary L. Freed

A qualitative study of enablers and barriers influencing the incorporation of social accountability values into organisational culture: a perspective from two medical schools

Definitions of social accountability describe the obligation of medical schools to direct education, research and service activities towards addressing the priority health concerns of the population they serve...

Authors: Nicholas Leigh-Hunt, Laura Stroud, Deborah Murdoch Eaton and Mary Rudolf

Referral patterns of Israeli pediatricians of common primary care office procedures

Pediatric primary care is the cornerstone of health care services for children. Performance of common office procedures is an integral part of primary care. Ideally, the community-based primary care pediatrici...

Authors: Deena R. Zimmerman, Yona Amitai, Zahi Grossman and Chen Stein-Zamir

Big Data in Israeli healthcare: hopes and challenges report of an international workshop

In September 2015, the Israel National Institute for Health Policy Research (NIHP) organized a workshop to address the hopes and challenges of Big Data in healthcare in the Israeli context. The paper provides ...

Authors: Christian Lovis and Ronni Gamzu

A survey of energy drink and alcohol mixed with energy drink consumption

Energy drink consumption among youth is increasing despite recommendations by the American Academy of Pediatrics to eliminate consumption by youth. This study provides information on consumption of energy drin...

Authors: Racheli Magnezi, Lisa Carroll Bergman, Haya Grinvald-Fogel and Herman Avner Cohen

Being a legal guardian – the nursing perspective

Surrogate decision making is common in public healthcare worldwide. In Israel any incompetent adult patient requires a Legal Guardian (LG), appointed by the court, for approval of invasive none-life saving pro...

Authors: Michael Kuniavsky, Ilana Kadmon and David Chinitz

Role of primary care providers in a pandemic – conflicting views and future opportunities

In pandemic situations, primary care providers may be involved in a variety of roles related to disease surveillance, diagnosis and treatment, prevention, and patient education. This commentary describes the c...

Authors: Sarah J. Clark

Family history intake: a challenge to personalized approaches in health promotion and disease prevention

Family history is considered an essential, obligatory part of the primary physician’s intake interview. Including coded FH in a unified medical file can save expensive genetic tests and detect the early onset ...

Authors: Ronit Endevelt, Iris Goren, Tal Sela and Varda Shalev

Differences in characteristics of pediatric patients undergoing computed tomography between hospitals and primary care settings: implications for assessing cancer follow-up studies

Recently published analyses showed that computed tomography (CT) scans in pediatric patients are associated with increased risk of radiation-related cancer. These analyses were based on data collected both fro...

Authors: Gabriel Chodick, Moran Levin, Ruth A. Kleinerman, Michael Shwarz, Varda Shalev, Shai Ashkenazi and Gad Horev

Undergraduate medical education in the U.S. and Israel: contrasts and common challenges

In 2014, the Israeli Council for Higher Education (CHE) commissioned an international panel of outstanding educators to prepare an ad hoc report reviewing the four established medical schools in Israel. The repor...

Authors: Arthur M. Feldman

Solving the worldwide emergency department crowding problem – what can we learn from an Israeli ED?

ED crowding is a prevalent and important issue facing hospitals in Israel and around the world, including North and South America, Europe, Australia, Asia and Africa. ED crowding is associated with poorer qual...

Authors: Jesse M. Pines and Steven L. Bernstein

Challenges of the Pandemic Response in Primary Care during Pre-Vaccination Period: A Qualitative Study

During the 2009/A/H1N1 pandemic, the main burden of the patient management fell on primary care physicians (PCPs), and they were the principal implementers of pandemic policies. Broad involvement of PCPs in th...

Authors: Marina Kunin, Dan Engelhard, Shane Thomas, Mark Ashworth and Leon Piterman

Organizational factors affecting length of stay in the emergency department: initial observational study

Length of stay (LOS) is considered a key measure of emergency department throughput, and from the perspective of the patient, it is perceived as a measure of healthcare service quality. Prolonged LOS can be ca...

Authors: Osnat Bashkin, Sigalit Caspi, Rachel Haligoa, Sari Mizrahi and Ruth Stalnikowicz

Observations and recommendations on the investigation of clinical decision-making and usage involving electrophysical agents

Electrophysical agents (EPAs), including electrotherapy, are important components of patient/client management. A recent study by Springer et al. has elucidated the pattern of use and factors in clinical decis...

Authors: David M. Selkowitz

What do people die from? The challenges of measuring disease burden posed by multi-morbidity

Determining the precise cause of death of an individual has become increasingly difficult as life prolonging treatments mean that many people may die with multiple disorders, any of which, individually or in c...

Authors: Martin McKee

High Israeli mortality rates from diabetes and renal failure - Can international comparison of multiple causes of death reflect differences in choice of underlying cause?

The age-adjusted mortality rate in Israel is low compared to most Western countries although mortality rates from diabetes and renal failure in Israel are amongst the highest, while those from cardiovascular d...

Authors: Nehama Goldberger, Yael Applbaum, Jill Meron and Ziona Haklai

Policy issues related to educating the future Israeli medical workforce: an international perspective

A 2014 external review of medical schools in Israel identified several issues of importance to the nation’s health. This paper focuses on three inter-related policy-relevant topics: planning the physician and ...

Authors: Stephen C. Schoenbaum, Peter Crome, Raymond H. Curry, Elliot S. Gershon, Shimon M. Glick, David R. Katz, Ora Paltiel and Jo Shapiro