director of community cardiology department Tel Aviv Jaffa district Clalit Health Services.
director of community cardiology department Tel Aviv Jaffa district Clalit Health Services.
Zaza Iakobishvili, MD, PhD, is the director of the Community Cardiology Department in Tel Aviv-Jaffa district of Clalit Health Services (largest healthcare provider in Israel), since January 2018.
Being an academic intensive care cardiologist for most of his career, he took on this position in firm belief that building timely, high quality preventive cardiology services and evidence-based care in the community settings, in close cooperation with hospital-based advanced care systems, will have the largest impact on the patients, as well as the goals of the healthcare systems.
Dr. Iakobishvili received his medical degree in 1988 from the Tbilisi State Medical University and completed his postdoctoral training in Tbilisi Institute of Human Physiology. In 1996 he moved to Israel, completed a 2-year residency in Internal medicine and received Board certification in Internal medicine after successful completing the qualifying exams.
He applied to a cardiology fellowship in the Department of Cardiology, Rabin Medical Center and successfully passed Board certification exams in cardiology in 2001. He worked as attending physician in the cardiac intensive care unit between the years 2002 to 2009, when he was appointed to lead the Emergency Cardiology Services.
In 2008, Dr. Iakobishvili was appointed the secretary of National Cardiology Board exams committee, for a two-year term.
Since 2009, he is the secretary general of the Biennial International Meeting on Acute Cardiac Care, a high-impact meeting with world-wide attendance, endorsed by the ESC and ACCA.
In 2011 and 2013 he was elected secretary of Israel Heart Society Working Group on Acute Cardiac Care. In 2015, he was elected chairman of this working group. In 2017, he was re-elected for another two-year term.
Dr. Iakobishvili is actively engaged in teaching at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at the University of Tel-Aviv, repeatedly named among “Best Teachers” list of the faculty.
He is actively involved in scientific research, and is author/co-author of more than 90 papers and book chapters, published in peer-reviewed journals in the field of cardiology, such as American Heart Journal, American Journal of Cardiology, International Journal of Cardiology, Heart, Mayo Clinic Proceedings, etc. He is the author of chapters on cardiogenic shock in ESC Textbook on Acute Cardiac Care (2010), Medical Clinics of North of America, AHA book on cardiogenic shock (2011).
He presented on international medical meetings as an invited faculty of the ESC in 2007, ESC Acute Cardiac Care meeting in Copenhagen, 2010, Madrid, 2013, Vienna, 2015. In 2015 he presented on the Joint Israel-France association of cardiology meeting “Biomarkers of Cardiotoxicity”. At the annual conference of Israel Heart Society in 2017, he delivered the plenary lecture on cardio-oncology. He takes active participation in the European Society of Cardiology Acute Cardiac Care Association working group on the quality of acute care. Dr. Iakobishvili led the Acute Coronary Syndrome Israeli Registry (ACSIS) in 2013, 2016 and 2018. In 2016 ACSIS was enriched by patient-level follow-up data from health management organizations database, thus allowing for the first time to follow the individual patient from the onset of the ACS until the chronic phase and outpatient management. ACSIS 2018 project enrolled about 2,000 new ACS patients and they are closely followed in the outpatient setting.
Dr. Iakobishvili has established the first dedicated cardio-oncology clinic in Israel in the Rabin Medical Center in 2013. He is an active participant and invited lecturer on the international cardio-oncology meetings. Dr. Iakobishvili chairs the Committee on the Surveillance and Management of Cardio-Oncology Patients of Israel Ministry of Health Council on Management and Prevention of Heart and Vascular Diseases.
Dr. Iakobishvili founded the first biennial International Cardio-Oncology Meeting in Israel. Two meetings took place (2015, 2017), both of which were highly attended and influential, attracting participants from more than 10 countries. The meetings raised the awareness of the importance of this field for the broader cardiology and oncology audiences.
From September 2019, he serves as President of Israeli Chapter of International Cardio-Oncology Society.
Recently he was appointed to serve as an international advisor for the Journal of American College of Cardiology – Cardio-oncology editorial board. He already serves on the editorial board of Cardio-Oncology, affiliated with the International Cardio-Oncology Society.
Dr. Iakobishvili is actively engaged in the organization of community heart failure clinics in the Tel Aviv district of Clalit Health Services which improves the process of evidence-based care delivery. He is a strong believer of patient and care-givers engagement in the care process to improve the outcomes.