Alternative Medicine Is Creeping into Israel as Tech Hub Spurs Innovation

Israel has a bright future, and I have focused on the topic of startups often. The tech industry is changing the world, and one of the advancements that I have neglected to mention is the healthcare industry as a whole.

For years, we’ve been seeing major changes in Israel’s health industry.

If you go back to 2012, you’ll see reports of alternative medicine starting to come to Israel. We’ve seen a rise in alternative or complementary medicine, such as acupuncture and herbal remedies, pop up. We’ve seen people boast of the numerous massage benefits and how dietary changes can help combat many diseases.

Skepticism has led to patients seeking other medical options, outside of doctors and pharmaceutical companies, to, at the very least, supplement their treatment. Efficacy has yet to be proven for many of these treatments, but people around the world have started to go to holistic doctors to seek new, alternative treatments to serious issues, such as depression, diabetes and heart disease.

Nurse-midwives helped bring alternative medicine to Israel through different birthing methods, aromatherapy, touch therapy, reflexology and even reiki.

Doctors had been slow to adopt many of these practices compared to other countries, which had much faster adoptions of alternative treatments.

And while the debate is open whether or not these methods work, we’re also seeing the tech industry innovate the medical and health field like never before.

Utilizing the tech resources of Israel’s startup culture, companies in Israel have been able to make advancements that will dramatically change people’s lives.

UPnRide has developed ways to make the next-generation mobility device. These devices, ideal for quadriplegics, are meant to keep people upright so that they can communicate at eye level rather than from below. People with numerous mobility-altering diseases or conditions can benefit from this device.

HemoScreen is also being developed that will act as a portable medical device that is able to perform the most common blood test in the world, which is the complete blood count, in a matter of minutes. Faster results allow for a drastic change in the way that doctors perform and medicine is prescribed. There’s no long wait for lab results. Walk into the office, take the test and have results in 5 minutes before talking to a doctor.

Tel Aviv University has also been able to develop a new method that can engineer any tissue type. The advancement, still in its infancy, would provide hope for a person that has had a heart attack, suffered a spinal cord injury or a person with brain damage. Biomaterials and cells that come from patients are being utilized to help with the regeneration process.

Personalized tissue implants have a worldwide reach, offering hope for millions of people worldwide that suffer from everything, from heart and lung disease to brain damage and spinal cord damage.

It’s a new field of tissue engineering that is set to change the world of medicine as we know it.

And it’s a development that has come from Israel. So, whether it’s breakthroughs in customized tissue implants or alternative medicine, Israel seems to be at the forefront of the medical and healthcare industry.