Published: 30 August 2022
Last updated: 5 March 2024
PROFESSOR SHARON LEWIN says learning about Israel’s management of big data in real-time is top of the list. SHARON BERGER reports.
One of Israel’s biggest assets during the Covid pandemic was how quickly medical researchers were able to share big data with the government, resulting in public health strategies that were one step ahead of the rest of the world.
The Israelis were sharing data only a week old, while Australian big data systems can often translate to a delay of six to twelve months, infectious diseases expert Professor Sharon Lewin, who co-chairs the National COVID-19 Health and Research Advisory Committee, told The Jewish Independent.
Next week Professor Lewin will head a delegation of senior Australia medical professional to Israel, where one of its primary goals will be to learn how the Israeli government and medical institutions are able to manage big data in real time, and try to implement that in Australia.
The 15-member delegation has been organised by AUSiMED, a not-for-profit organisation fostering medical research collaboration and knowledge transfer between Australia and Israel.
In addition to Professor Lewin, a board member of Ausimed and director of the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, the delegates will include NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant and Prof Allen Cheng, former co-chair of the ATAGI Covid-19 Working Group.
Professor Lewin believes that getting access to Israel’s big data management can help Australia better respond to infectious diseases and pandemics in the future.
In Australia we don’t tell the rest of the world what we are doing and I think that’s a missed opportunity.
In particular, she notes the delegation's interest in the ongoing exchanges between academic and government bodies which allows for Israeli academics to utilise and publish current government derived data.
“In Australia we do generate data and have a lot of important capabilities but it is often done behind closed doors, and while it informs policy, we don’t tell the rest of the world what we are doing and I think that’s a missed opportunity,” Professor Lewin said.
Chairman of Ausimed, Antony Cohen, added: “this high-powered Australian delegation is meeting with top Israeli public health officials and practitioners to further deepen the person-to-person networks between our two countries and inform ongoing management of this pandemic and potentially other infectious diseases going forward.”
The delegation will also study mathematical modelling, the vaccine rollout and hesitancy, as well as virology and immunology epidemiology.
During the five-day visit, from September 4-8, they plan to meet with department heads in the Israeli Ministry of Health, as well as clinicians and academics from Israel’s leading universities and hospital networks, including Hebrew University, Tel Aviv University, the Weizmann Institute, Sheba Medical Centre, the Hadassah Medical Centre, Tel Aviv Ichilov Medical Centre and Clalit Research Institute.
Lewin said that as a result of Israel’s innovative Covid expertise, there is intense interest from most of her colleagues, the majority of whom have not been to Israel previously. She has visited multiple times, including spending a year studying at Hebrew University, but hasn’t been back in almost six years.
She noted the Australian federal government’s regular communication with Israeli Health Ministry officials during the pandemic. Although there are no federal representatives among the group, the delegation was designed to ensure representation from medical experts from a wide variety of states, as well as governmental and private institutions, so that lessons learned can be shared widely.
Lewin emphasised that the diversity of the participants differentiated the delegation from most other international collaborations she has previously participated in.
She said she also hopes that peer-to-peer relationships will develop from the visit which could result in other collaborations down the track.
