Changing the current health system's vision for disease prevention and health promotion

Using the case of Israel, we examine the confluence of current philosophies of health care along with the historical trends of health promotion/disease prevention services to consider strategies for increasing inclusiveness and for updating and improving their service delivery.

Health services in Israel are at a crossroads. Plans to integrate the historic, nurse-operated, nationwide programme, providing health promotion/disease prevention services to pregnant women and young children for all residents (Tipat Halav) into the National Health Service System's existing Sickness Funds are under discussion.

Using a discourse approach, this paper examines the current and historical context of health promotion/disease prevention services. Our history shows an increasingly treatment-based perspective and dwindling support for inclusive services. In the current health system, Tipat Halav nurses solely provide inclusive health promotion/disease prevention services to pregnant women and young children. Informed by the World Health Organization, a reorientation to health promotion/disease prevention is essential in an ageing society where chronic rather than infectious diseases are the reigning health problems.

Israel needs to reorganize the health system using a public health approach that both incorporates existing structures and establishes new ones, such as creating a network to elicit community input, and instituting nurse-operated clinics designed to provide health promotion/disease prevention services for all ages and all residents.

The newly created health system framework demands activism among all health professionals to legislate for an inclusive, holistic orientation. Master's level clinical programmes in community health nursing are vital to ensure the provision of optimal health promotion/disease prevention services.