Sheba Completes Top Global Accreditation Amid Wartime Emergency

Sheba Medical Center has successfully completed the international JCI accreditation review, widely regarded as the world’s leading standard for medical quality and safety. The inspection took place this week and lasted six days, carried out by a team of six international surveyors who conducted more than 60 tracers, interviews, observations, and in-depth examinations of the hospital’s systems.

The review came as Sheba was also operating under emergency procedures after the security escalation and missile fire on Israel earlier in the week. During that period, departments were moved into protected areas, emergency protocols were activated, and routine medical care continued alongside the crisis response. The hospital said it maintained full continuity of treatment while protecting patients.

Sheba said it is the first government hospital in Israel to be examined as an academic medical center under JCI Edition 8, the newest and most comprehensive version of the standard. The hospital described the achievement as especially significant because it was completed under wartime conditions.

In their closing remarks, the surveyors said their time at the hospital deeply affected how they view both medicine in Israel and Israel more broadly. Surveyor Bernadette Teahan said staff repeatedly used the word “lighthouse,” adding that she would now remember it in connection with Sheba and tell others about what she saw there. Dr. Michael T. Nevin said, “This is a hospital of peace. A hospital of people,” and added that when he speaks about Israel, he will describe “a very different picture” from what he had known before. Dr. Amir Greenberg said the accreditation reflected years of work by thousands of employees, and Prof. Yitzhak Kreiss said the past week showed that medical leadership is tested “in the most complex moments,” even while caring for thousands of patients.