For millions of people living with mental health disorders, finding the right treatment can be a lengthy process of trial and error. A medication that works for one patient may prove ineffective for another, while identifying the most appropriate therapy can take months, sometimes at the cost of worsening symptoms and lost hope.
Researchers from Israel and France believe advances in artificial intelligence, biological markers and large-scale medical data could help change that reality. Their goal is to move psychiatry toward a more personalized approach, one that identifies the specific characteristics of each patient’s condition and matches them with the most effective treatment.
France–Israel Symposium: Shaping the Future of Mental Health
(Video: Yaron Brener)
That vision brought leading psychiatrists, scientists and healthcare professionals from both countries to the France–Israel Symposium: Shaping the Future of Mental Health, held November 4 at the Carlton Hotel in Tel Aviv. Clalit Health Services was a key partner in the symposium, which focused on precision psychiatry, an emerging field that seeks to improve psychiatric diagnosis and treatment by identifying measurable biological and clinical differences between patients.
“We are truly on the brink of a revolution,” said Marion Leboyer, professor of psychiatry at Université Paris-Est Créteil and CEO of Fondation FondaMental in France. Rather than offering the same treatment strategies to everyone, Leboyer explained, researchers hope to identify specific biological mechanisms and biomarkers that can guide therapeutic decisions.
Leading psychiatrists, scientists and healthcare professionals from France and Israel at the France–Israel Symposium: Shaping the Future of Mental Health
(Photo: Screenshot)
“The hope today is to identify precise clinical targets and precise biological targets,” she said, pointing to blood markers and brain imaging as potential tools for developing more targeted treatments.
One of the central themes of the conference was the potential of large healthcare databases to support research and identify patterns that would otherwise be difficult to detect. Professor Amir Kirvoy, director of Geha Mental Health Center, part of Clalit Health Services, said Israel has a significant advantage in this field because Clalit’s extensive medical records allow researchers to examine patients’ health histories across both community clinics and hospitals.
The integrated data includes diagnoses, medications, laboratory results and information about mental health treatment, creating opportunities to investigate how psychiatric conditions develop and how different patients respond to treatment. “We can implement machine learning protocols and algorithms to try to see if we can predict, for example, eruptions of illnesses, medication response or nonresponse, and maybe also medication side effects,” Kirvoy said.
Such research could eventually help clinicians identify patients at risk earlier, predict which medications are more likely to work and reduce the time spent trying ineffective treatments. But scientific progress alone will not solve the challenges facing mental health systems. The growing demand for care, particularly in Israel following years of war, has also highlighted the need to make treatment more accessible.
Dr. Jordan Lewinski, head of mental health services at Clalit, said the healthcare provider has experienced a sharp increase in demand, including a 50% rise in mental health clinic visits. “The burden of mental health is extremely high, and we don’t see a decrease over time after the start of the war,” he said.
According to Lewinski, Clalit has opened 50 new mental health clinics over the past three years and increased its treatment workforce by 42%, while developing additional approaches designed to help patients receive appropriate care without unnecessarily long waits.
Clalit has opened 50 new mental health clinics over the past three years and increased its treatment workforce by 42%
(Photo: Screenshot)
Professor Shlomo Mendelovitch, director of Shalvata Mental Health Center, said the gap between demand for mental health services and available clinical resources remains substantial. Delivering more precise treatments, he argued, could help healthcare professionals use their resources more effectively and expand access to care.
Beyond technological innovation, the symposium highlighted the potential benefits of collaboration between researchers and healthcare institutions in both countries, particularly in treating trauma.
Dr. Amaury Mengin, a psychiatrist at the Grand Est Regional Psychotrauma Center in Strasbourg, pointed to the experience of France following the November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris and Saint-Denis, alongside Israel’s experience with war-related trauma.
Both countries, he said, have accumulated valuable experience in understanding the effects of traumatic events on individuals and communities. “I believe Israel and France can bring together cohorts of patients followed after these terrible events in both countries and pool their data to improve the treatment of collective trauma,” Mengin said.
The collaboration could also support research into more effective and accessible PTSD treatments. Mengin described emerging approaches in France, including shorter forms of psychotherapy and intensive treatment programs designed to reduce dropout rates and improve patient participation.
Leboyer emphasized that the partnership extends beyond hospitals and universities to include technology companies and startups working on biomarkers, digital health and artificial intelligence. “Our goal is to build collaborations between French and Israeli teams, whether academic teams or startups, to develop innovations in biomarkers, digital technology, artificial intelligence and innovative therapeutic strategies,” she said.
For the researchers and healthcare leaders gathered in Tel Aviv, the ultimate measure of success will not be the sophistication of the technology itself, but whether new discoveries translate into better outcomes for patients. As Leboyer put it, the goal is to move beyond treating everyone with the same methods and develop targeted therapies that deliver the right treatment to the right patient at the right time.