ADVANCE nursing, advance healthcare for everyone

When Professor Efrat Shadmi thinks about the future of healthcare, she returns to the memory of caring for her late father after he was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer when she was only 23 years-old. He received excellent medical care, she recalls, but no one person was responsible for connecting the many parts of his care or helping the family make sense of what was happening. That experience made something clear that has shaped her work ever since – healthcare needs “the power of nursing.” 

That belief is at the heart of the Azrieli Advanced Nursing Center (ADVANCE) at the University of Haifa, a centre of excellence supported by the Azrieli Foundation that is strengthening Israel’s nursing workforce through education, research, simulation and innovation. Supporting healthcare innovation and advancing scientific knowledge are key priorities for the Foundation, and in a healthcare system facing growing complexity, workforce pressures and an aging population, ADVANCE reflects both by investing in nurse education, research and leadership roles that improve care. 

Led by Shadmi, Head of ADVANCE and the Cheryl Spencer Department of Nursing, and Professor Anna Zisberg, Head of ADVANCE’s Research Unit, the centre brings together three complementary areas: ADVANCE-RUN, focused on research; ADVANCE-LIVS, focused on simulation-based education; and ADVANCE-TECH, focused on healthcare technology and innovation. Together, they move knowledge into practice and prepare nurses to meet healthcare’s most pressing needs. Research is the cornerstone of all ADVANCE initiatives. It guides the entire innovation cycle, from identifying needs and designing new models, through implementation and evaluation, to the dissemination of evidence that informs healthcare practice and policy worldwide. 

Professor Zisberg’s path to nursing began differently. After immigrating from Russia to Israel, she entered nursing for practical reasons and quickly discovered a profession that became her life’s work. As a hospital nurse, she saw older adults admitted for treatable conditions leave hospital less mobile, less independent or less cognitively well than when they arrived. That observation became a decades-long research focus that changed practice nationally: hospitals across Israel are measuring mobility and function not only at admission, but also at discharge. 

Both leaders are being recognized internationally for their contributions. Zisberg was inducted into Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing’s International Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame, and Shadmi, a Johns Hopkins-trained scholar, will receive a Johns Hopkins Distinguished Alumni Award. As the centre completes its first year, the recognition reflects something larger: ADVANCE is moving Israeli nursing knowledge onto the global stage. 

The centre is also helping to mentor and educate the next generation. In 2026, 14 graduate students in the Joint Master’s and Palliative Care Nurse Practitioner Program received ADVANCE scholarships. These nurses are balancing advanced study with demanding clinical roles while preparing to deliver more compassionate, evidence-based care. 

One nurse is working to bring better medical and emotional care to northern Israel. Another serves as a pediatric palliative care liaison for children and families. A third was inspired by the care her mother received in a bone marrow transplant unit and later returned to that same hospital as a nurse herself. 

For Zisberg, nurses are uniquely positioned to connect the many moving parts of care. Nurse practitioners, she explains, connect medical knowledge, patient care and the human realities of illness. They “speak both medicine and patient language,” helping translate complex care into something patients, families and clinical teams can understand and act on. “The healthcare system breaks when we don’t have that integration,” she says. 

For patients, that kind of nursing leadership can be life-changing in immediate, practical ways. Professor Shadmi describes patients with multiple chronic conditions arriving with bags of medications, overlapping prescriptions, contradictory instructions and uncertainty about what to take and when. “A nurse from our comprehensive care program can sit with them, review the medical record…and bring order to the mess affecting their daily life,” Shadmi says. 

Professor Shadmi put it best: “The work feels like ‘tikkun olam,’” a Hebrew phrase often translated as repairing the world. It is an ambitious vision, but one that begins with practical acts of care: listening to patients, guiding families, translating complexity and ensuring no one falls through the cracks. Through the Azrieli Foundation’s generous support of ADVANCE, more nurses are gaining the skills and confidence to do exactly that.