A Snapshot of 2020 at the Largest Hospital in Northern Israel

• 4,222 precious babies were born at Rambam this year; 2,210 boys and 2,012 girls. 1,255 different surgeries were performed on women who were in various stages of pregnancy and childbirth. This is a declining trend in recent years, with 1,352 such surgeries recorded in 2019 and 1,388 in 2018. This trend is in part due to policies at Rambam focused on encouraging more natural births and fewer elective cesarean births.
• 86,533 visits were recorded at the Green-Wagner Department of Emergency Medicine. Of these, 8,974 patients were registered in the Obstetrics & Gynecology Division. A total of 119,581 patients were treated in Rambam’s various emergency departments this year.
• Rambam's CT Unit performed approximately 61,523,000 tests! This is a rate of 160 tests per day in a unit that serves the entire northern region 24/7.
• A total of 269,018 imaging tests were performed during the past year, including more than 23,100 ultrasound exams and 147,119 X-rays.
• With regard to the heart, cardiac catheterization was performed on 2,322 patients in Rambam’s Unit for Interventional Cardiology, and 552 patients underwent heart surgery.
• Rambam's operating rooms remained quite busy this year, with surgeons performing more than 24,350 surgical procedures, including 18 kidney transplantations and 4,474 orthopedic procedures, as well as thousands of highly specialized plastic surgeries, and eye surgeries – not to mention the growing number of complex and groundbreaking procedures performed despite the pandemic!
• Rambam’s helicopter pad—one of the sites most identified with the hospital’s role as the only Level 1 trauma center in the region—saw 150 landings last year. Most of the helicopters arriving at Rambam were either military or Magen David Adom, transporting wounded patients for life-saving care.
• 1,384 COVID-19 patients have been treated at Rambam since the first such patient was admitted on March 6, 2020. The largest age group of COVID-19 patients at Rambam was aged 50-65, with 363 patients, followed by 30-49 year-olds with 273 patients. In addition, 11 pediatric patients ranging from 1–5 years old, and 15 patients who were less than a year old were treated for COVID-19.

Activities at Ruth Rappaport Children's Hospital

• 20,554 patients visited the Cheryl Spencer Pediatric Emergency Department this year, including 8,167 trauma cases. Of these, 8,252 were hospitalized in the pediatric wards.
• The Department of Pediatric Surgery performed around 860 surgeries this year, including kidney transplantations – which began to be performed at Rambam approximately six years ago. It is noteworthy that Rambam is one of only two hospitals in Israel that performs pediatric kidney transplantations. They are performed by a multidisciplinary team comprised of medical staff from various departments throughout the hospital.
• In the field of cardiac surgery, doctors from the Department of Cardiac Surgery performed 87 operations on children up to 18 years old.
• There were 953 hospitalizations in the Joan & Sanford Weill Division of Pediatric Hematology-Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplantation; 603 hospitalizations in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit; and 430 hospitalizations in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
• 662 pediatric gastroenterology operations were performed.
• 30 pediatric bone marrow transplants were performed this year, including self-transplants, transplants from family member donors, and transplants from unrelated donors.

Rambam’s Investment in the Future of Medicine: Patents, Technologies and Developments Marking 2020 as a Year of Growth

This past year also provided technological growth and investments in Rambam’s vision of entrepreneurship and medical innovation, under the auspices of Rambam MedTech, the hospital’s technology transfer company.

Rambam MedTech leads the hospital’s technological innovation and manages its intellectual property, supporting the transformation of innovative ideas into leading products at the international level. It does so by accompanying and promoting inventions, grants, initial funding for intellectual property development, and commercialization of technologies for business partners, the biotechnology and medical device industry. During the past year, a number of investments were made by external companies in technologies developed at Rambam, including:

• A cooperation agreement with the "MedicUp" group, a biotech company that invests in a number of medical device technologies at Rambam.
• Signing a low-technology licensing agreement for the commercialization of technology under the auspices of the American company "Nutriband", which will invest in the development of a device for crushing cytotoxic pills for safe use by medical staff.
• The transformation of Caps Medical—a spin-off of technology that was invented at Rambam and the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology—into an independent company with an investment of $3.5 million at the end of the incubator period.
• Another investment recorded this year is that of Rafael Pharmaceuticals, which supports extensive research conducted at Rambam’s Medical Cannabis Research and Innovation Center at Rambam, led by Dr. Igal Louria-Hayon. The study identifies the molecular and biochemical action mechanisms of oils extracted from the cannabis plant and their effect on immune system cells in arthritis models. The purpose of this study is to develop cannabis-based vaccines that will be tested at the clinical level at Rambam.
• Rambam's Clinical and Research Microbiome Center also received attention this year, when MyBiotics began investing in the center, led by Dr. Milena Pitashny, and became a supporter of the study of the optimal microbial composition for promising clinical indications. Rambam's Clinical and Research Microbiome Center deals with the transplantation of microbiome (feces) and characterization of the microbiome in different areas of the body in collaboration with Rambam researchers.

Rambam also registered 11 patents that are expected to bring about a change in the way patients are treated. The patents included a biodegradable cutting device for eye muscle surgery, a system for anchoring sutures during heart surgery, an innovative valve for preventing urine leaks, and an "air curtain" mask for protection against COVID-19.

Keeping on Track for 2021!

If there is any takeaway from this snapshot of 2020 at Rambam Health Care Campus, we’d like it to be this – the pandemic has not impeded our vision: To assume a national and world leadership position of influence in diagnosis and therapy, innovation, research, technology and team development, all while maintaining the centrality of the individual, whether patient or staff member, in every activity.

Here's to a happy, successful, and healthy 2021!