Emergency Medical System (EMS) is a core component of the emergency medical and trauma care system, rapidly responding to and transporting millions of people every year. EMS is consistently seeking new and better ways to safely decrease response times and improve patient outcomes.16 Advances in healthcare delivery and technology offer new opportunities for innovative solutions. Drones have emerged as a particularly promising innovation.
Delivery of Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs)
In 2021, AEDs were delivered by drone to a series of 12 real-life suspected OCHAs through an area of controlled airspace in Sweden.43 Covering a mean distance of 3.1 miles, 11 of the 12 lights successfully dropped the AED by parachute within 9 meters of their intended target (92%). Of these, 64% delivered the AED before ambulance arrival, with a mean time savings of 1:52 minutes. This pilot study was the first to demonstrate the feasibility of integrating a drone-delivery system from the OHCA emergency call, to drone dispatch, to AED delivery.
Delivery of Emergency Blood and Blood Products
In Ghana, drone delivery of blood (both as lab samples and as emergency blood and blood product delivery) is now available for thousands of health facilities serving millions of people.11 In the US, where whole blood and blood products are often sparse in rural areas, and where drones are more highly regulated and where air traffic is more congested, the feasibility of drone-delivery of blood and blood products is still being assessed.
Delivery of Rescue Medications
Drones have also been evaluated as potential modes of emergency delivery of rescue medicines such as epinephrine, antiepileptics, and insulin. Early administration of epinephrine is the only first-line edication for anaphylaxis treatment and is routinely delivered by patients themselves or lay bystanders using an EpiPen® or similar delivery system.
Search and Rescue
One of the many services that EMS provides is Search and Rescue (SAR), which can be particularly critical in remote or coastal areas. The viability of using drones to aid deployed rescuers in remote SAR operations was evaluated in a series of 10 simulated SAR events in remote Utah in 2020.56 In this study, the ability of drones to maintain radio communication between deployed rescuers and a central command in areas with compromised ground-based radio communication was tested. They found that in all ten areas evaluated, drone assistance restored and maintained consistent lines of communication. Using deep learning, Hungarian researchers demonstrated that drones have the capability to accurately and reliably recognizing a range of human gestures from a distance that could aid in future SAR operations.
Disaster Response
Drones are also used as critical tools in disaster response and management. In such events, drones can be used to provide emergency surveillance, telecommunication services, SAR operations, and delivery of emergency supplies and aid in areas in which medical personnel are unable to safely reach. For example, drones were able to deliver such emergency medical response and aid to people in Haiti and Taiwan after the 2010 and 2016 earthquakes, in the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan in 2013, and in Nepal, which faces frequent floods, landslides, and avalanches.
In the US, plans to deliver supplies to Ocracoke Island, a remote island village in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, are in the process of being tested for hurricane response scenarios.69 Drones equipped with video, telecommunication capabilities, and thermal imaging can be particularly useful in such events. Drones have also been shown to have the potential be particularly valuable tools for disaster management in remote areas such as the Canadian arctic.
Mass Casualty Response
Drones could serve to augment this type of response, allowing the command staff to have direct, visual supervision over the nature of the mass casualty incident, ensure scene safety, and assist with operations and logistics of field personnel. An “eye in the sky” may provide invaluable information for command staff that are at a distance from the incident, where historically only radio reports provide situation response. Surveys of incident commanders find that this tool would be valuable to augment this radio information of front-line responders.
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