Engineering solutions for the future of modern medicine

When you're new to a city, finding health practitioners that you trust can be difficult, and it's made even more challenging if you identify as LGBTQ and are looking for queer-competent providers. A new app launching in Philadelphia changes that thought, by acting as a "queer health care 'Yelp.'”

As conservationists around the world grapple with saving endangered species, many have turned to the tech sector. Initiatives like The Zooniverse, a citizen science platform for people-powered research, are helping expand over 90 different projects. Even more, scientists have started directly collaborating with technologists to develop products, like weather-resistant cameras for capturing penguins in Antarctica, specially for their work.

Turning rainwater into electric power may sound farfetched, but it has become a reality thanks to 15-year-old Reyhan Jamalova in Azerbaijan. Appropriately dubbed Rainergy, this new source of renewable energy has the potential to bring power to underprivileged communities as well as be marketed internationally.

Mosquito transmitted diseases are only becoming more prevalent due to climate change, posing a global health risk. Various methods are being tested such as genetic modification and gene drives, Project DiSARM-uses technology to map where to spray insecticide, and introduction of Wolbachia-a bacterial disease that decreases mosquitos' ability to reproduce-into the environment.

Improving health care with the patient’s goals in mind requires in-person consultations and a system that efficiently collects data from the patient’s medical history and treatment. The Camden Coalition Health Information provides a network of electronic medical records for each patient with data contributed from hospitals and labs. The Exchange also uses “health care hotspotting” to connect patients with services that have had success and offers in-person conversations to chart their progress.

Concerned with colony collapse syndrome in honey bees worldwide, scientists, farmers and tech companies teamed up in Australia to create a micro-sensor that collects data on the bee's environment.

Rural hospitals across the country often struggle to stay open in states where Medicaid has not been expanded, but a method known as "swing beds" has helped two critical-access hospitals in Georgia to avoid this fate. This method, which allows hospitals to swing beds from "only patients in need of acute care to those who no longer require the emergency department but still needed more treatment before a nursing home," allowed for the hospitals to pay off debt and expand services.

Switzerland is home to the world's lowest avoidable mortality rate and residents of the country live longer lives and are healthier than those who live in the United States. Health policy experts credit the Swiss health care system for playing a significant role. Despite the high cost and the penalty for not carrying insurance, the system is praised as guarateeing access to quality health-care and "unlike the U.S., people rarely go bankrupt from medical bills."

Maryland's health care system is based on three pillars – all-payer rate setting, a global budget, and total cost of care – that, together, have shown positive results both for the patients and for the state's hospitals. Although evidence of success with regard to health care costs is limited, the model of incentiving investment in community health and preventive care has shown success in reducing readmission rates for hospitals across the state.

Health care in the Netherlands relies heavily on the collaboration, cooperation, and shared responsibility between private markets and government regulations to achieve affordable, consistent, and quality care for patients. Although the system is not without its limitations, this process has helped the country avoid preventable deaths while also guaranting nearly all residents insurance.