Technion-Rambam Initiative in Medical AI
The Technion and Rambam Health Care Campus are setting up a new joint Technion-Rambam Center for Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare (now called TERA) that will signal a revolution in medical decision-making. TERA, the first joint academic-hospital AI center in Israel and one of the first in the world, will develop advanced artificial intelligence systems to analyze a patient’s condition. The center will focus on developing tools that will help physicians select, in real time, the most appropriate and accurate medical treatment for a patient. These tools will be based on a complex and rapid analysis of all the relevant medical information that has accumulated in big medical databases over the years. In the words of Assistant Professor Joachim Behar, co-director of the center, the aim of the CAIH is to “create the leading Israeli academic center for medical AI committed to advanced medical and clinical research, resulting in significant and actionable benefit to patient care.”
The Center’s opening conference, “Technion-Rambam Hack: Machine Learning in Healthcare,” which was held at Rambam Health Care Campus on March 9, was attended by about 250 people, and featured leading researchers from the Technion, Rambam, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Ministry of Health, Clalit Health Services, GE Healthcare, and Roche. Scientists, healthcare practitioners and policy makers from all around the world shared their knowledge on the fascinating topic, while student teams attempted to tackle salient issues in healthcare by technological means. The opening remarks were delivered by Technion President, Professor Uri Sivan and the CEO of Rambam, Professor Miki Halberthal. A roundtable on the topic of data stakeholders was moderated by Professor Rafi Beyar, former director of Rambam Health Care Campus, and one of the visionaries behind the new center.
