Sunday July 15, 2007

The WBL delegation arrived in Israel over the weekend. The group is small, but a perfect size for everyone to get to know each other and to be flexible in our travels around the country to learn more about Israel's health care and life sciences industries.
The WBL women traveling with the delegation are:
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Susan Alpert, Senior VP, Chief Quality & Regulatory Officer
Medtronic, Inc.
Minneapolis, MN

Ruth Brinkley, President & CEO
Memorial Health Care System
Chattanooga, TN

Mary Grealy, President
Healthcare Leadership Council
Washington, DC

Taney Hamill, CEO
WBL Foundation
Washington, DC

Merrie Howard, Executive Assistant
Epstein Becker & Green, P.C.
Washington, DC

Christine Maddock, Assistant Controller
RA Patina Group
New York, NY

Ellen Maddock, Trustee
Hackettstown Regional Medical Center
New York, NY

Paula Morgan, President
Morgan Consulting, LLC
Murray Hill, NJ

Jeanne Shapiro Nahan, Pianist and Choral Director
Princeton Charter School
Lawrenceville, NJ

Marcia Nusgart, President
Nusgart Consulting LLC
Bethesda, MD

Hadar Ron, Managing Director
Israel Healthcare Ventures, Ltd.
Tel Aviv, Israel

Lori Ross, Communications Consultant
Putnam-Ross Communications
Arnold, MD

Theresa Stevens, Global Head Negotiations & Business Development
Novartis Pharma AG
Basel, Switzerland

Lynn Shapiro Snyder, Senior Partner
Epstein Becker & Green, P.C. and
Founder & President
WBL Foundation
Washington, DC

Eleanor Whitley, Director
WBL Foundation
Washington, DC

This afternoon the group attended sessions at the Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute in Jerusalem to receive an overview of Israel's health care system. Dr. Bruce Rosen, Director of the Smokler Center for Health Policy at the Brookdale Institute graciously hosted our event and presented us with this overview. The Brookdale Institute is a leading social sciences research group in Israel.
It was fascinating to learn more about health care in Israel - and particularly fascinating to learn about the universal health coverage provided by the government, under four HMOs. The WBL delegation was relieved to hear that innovation can still prosper under such a system, and also to learn that Israel and the United States share many challenges related to the future of health care. Anyone interested in seeing this powerpoint should feel free to contact a WBL staff member and we will share Dr. Rosen's insights with you.
This evening we arrived in Tel Aviv and checked into our hotel there. On Sunday, Jerusalem was the base for our trip as the women arrived during the weekend. We were then whisked off to a dinner at House No. 3 in Jaffa in Tel Aviv. House No. 3 is the home of an Israeli family who hosts special events. The food was delicious and all agreed that the networking was even better! The dinner was sponsored by Dr. Hadar Ron, Managing Partner of Israel Healthcare Ventures, and she attended along with many of her colleagues and industry contacts. There were at least thirty people at a very long dinner table! The guest of honor at this dinner was Dalia Dorner, a former Supreme Court justice who spoke on equality in the state of Israel.
After networking and learning more about Israel's health care system from the guests -- whose perspectives were interesting both as businesspeople and as residents of Israel, we returned back to the hotel.