Hi-tech and tikkun olam: Israel paves the way

Decades have passed since Israelis invented a modernized drip irrigation to maximize limited water supply and make desert bloom, yet Israeli curiosity, drive and ingenuity toward excellence continues to thrive. Israelis are determined to lead in solving some of the most pressing humanitarian challenges. Working on the precepts of tikkun olam, Israel persists at the forefront of innovation, seeking to make life better for all. Just one avenue where Israel excels is health and medicine. 

Nearly 1 billion people in developed countries consider emergency response expensive and delayed, while upwards of 6 billion people in the developing world simply lack access to any sort of emergence response. In cases of accidents, terror attacks or other medical emergencies, people are likely to die or suffer serious injuries because of a lack of proper response. With its unfortunate and long history of facing terror attacks, Israel has honed in on effective emergency response techniques to save lives quicker.

In Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, like in most major cities, ambulances typically get stuck in traffic and cannot arrive fast enough. Following the Second Intifada, a group of young ambulance medics watched too many people die because aid was unavailable. So they envisioned a solution, where medics could be notified according to their proximity to a reported incident. Equipped with medical supplies, they could rush over and stabilize victims within the minutes before the ambulance arrives. This model, now called United Hatzalah, dropped response times to under three minutes.

“We took chutzpah and ran with it,” said Eli Beer, founder of United Hatzalah of Israel. Since officially formalized in 2006, United Hatzalah has recruited over 2,500 trained volunteer medics to join the movement of community-based lifesaving. To fuel the program, the organization worked with Israeli startup NowForce to develop the LifeCompass app, an integrated GPS-powered system that records incidents, alerts nearby medics and guides them to arrive to the scene quickly.