ON YOUR BIKE: Ambulances save lives, unless they're stuck in city traffic unable to get through. But that's where the Ambucycle plays its part. In Israel the United Hatzalah and its thousands of local volunteer emergency medical technicians can deploy instantly on their motorcycles to help stabilise patients until the ambulance can arrive.
The bikes are equipped with an on-board trauma kit, oxygen canister, defibrillator, and other supplies. The medics themselves have a smartphone equipped with GPS so they receive notifications of emergencies and can respond quickly. Their average response time is 3 minutes. That's an all round smart response.
SAFETY IN NUMBERS: Vaccines have played a huge role around the world in preventing disease and saving lives. But vaccines are generally liquid and have to be carefully cooled, stored and transported, which may be a significant problem in many developing countries. What's more, keeping needles clean and safe is also a challenge. Australian researchers have developed a skin patch that delivers dry vaccine to a layer just beneath the skin, rather than into the muscle as current vaccines are. Rather than using a single large needle, thousands of tiny projections in the patch release the vaccine just below the skin.
And the take up and response in that part of the body are so good that only one hundredth of the traditional dose is required. You may feel a thousand small stings.
VEIN HOPE: If you need an intravenous drip a nurse must find a vein to insert it into, and that's not always simple. The Eyes-On Glasses System makes veins easy to see. The smart glasses use near-infrared light to highlight deoxygenated hemoglobin in a patient's veins.