AUTONOMOUS CARS PROMISE to give us back the time we spend in traffic, improve the flow of traffic, reduce accidents, deaths, and injuries, and make personal car travel possible for everyone regardless of their abilities or condition. But despite impressive demonstrations and technical advances, many obstacles remain on the road to fully autonomous cars.²⁰ Overcoming the challenges to enabling autonomous cars to safely operate in highly complex driving situations may take some time. Manufacturers already produce partially automated cars, and a spirited competition to deliver the most sophisticated ones is under way. Cars that provide high levels of automation in some circumstances (such as highway driving) have already arrived in the marketplace and promise to be in the hands of a large number of car owners in the next few years.

A meta-analysis of oncology papers from around the world revealed that cancer patients who lived more than 50 miles away from hospital centers routinely presented with more advanced stages of disease at diagnosis, exhibited lower adherence to prescribed treatments, presented with poorer diagnoses, and reported a lower quality of life than patients who lived nearer to care facilities. Connected health approaches-or the use of broadband and telecommunications technologies to evaluate, diagnose, and monitor patients beyond the clinic-are becoming an indispensable tool in medicine to overcome the obstacle of distance.