Israel’s largest hospital – Chaim Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer, Ramat Gan near Tel Aviv – has been named the “10th-best best medical center in the world” by Newsweek magazine. The 70-year-old medical institution was described as “a leader in medical science and biotechnical innovation, both in the Middle East and worldwide. The center’s collaborations with international parties have advanced innovative medical practices, hospital systems and biotechnology,” the magazine stated.
More than a quarter of all Israeli clinical medical research is carried out at Sheba, “and as a hospital it works with nearly every Israeli medical institute to educate students and advance the future of the medical profession,” the report continued.
The top spot in the list went to the Mayo Clinic, followed by the Cleveland Clinic, the “site of the world’s first total facial transplant,” the Singapore General Hospital and the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. A panel of doctors, medical professionals and administrators across four continents chose the top medical centers.
The tertiary referral hospital was established in 1948 as Israel’s first military hospital to treat casualties of Israel’s War of Independence. It was located in a cluster of abandoned military barracks from the Mandate era and originally known as Army Hospital No. 5. Israel’s Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion had it renamed Tel HaShomer Hospital. In 1953, it became a civilian hospital, and Dr. Chaim Sheba became its director. Following Sheba’s death, the hospital was renamed in his honor. Today, it serves more than a million inpatients and outpatients per year.
Situated on a 150-acre campus, Sheba today has 120 different departments and clinics, some 1,700 beds, over 1,400 physicians, 2,600 nurses and 3,300 other healthcare workers. The Newsweek story also mentioned the hospital’s affiliation with Tel Aviv University.
Some 200,000 patients come to its emergency departments and more than two million medical tests of all types are performed each year. Its annual budget is some $320 million. Sheba is supported by donations from a network of philanthropists and friends from around the world.
According to the magazine, 25% of all clinical research performed in Israel is carried out at Tel Hashomer’s state-of-the-art facilities. Newsweek partnered with Statista Inc., a global market research and consumer data company, to develop a groundbreaking ranking of the world’s best hospitals.
In a statement, Sheba director-general Prof. Yitzhak Kreiss said the hospital’s ranking was “the product of 70 years of excellence, professionalism and innovation and thanks to the thousands of dedicated Sheba employees, both past and present. As a state-owned hospital, we will continue to be here in order to provide the best medical treatment for all those who need it and stretch the boundaries of what is possible, to challenge and be challenged and place the State of Israel in a respectable place on the global health map. Never resting on our laurels, we will continue pushing the boundaries to find cures and treatments that will not only benefit our patients in Israel but to also benefit mankind around the globe.”
