Drones can be used in Healthcare to save lives!
Written by Mohammad Abu-Rezeq on 13.10.2022
Cellular-supported drones (running with SIM card running with 4G LTE or 5G) give us much more capable drone control in remote areas and increase the chances of reaching far distances without the fear of losing the connection between the operator and the drone itself. With this feature, we will able to control our drone over long distance. How can we benefit from this in healthcare?
Using drones will have a profound impact on our lives by developing them in mission-critical healthcare applications. In the med4PAN project we will use in case of a cardiac arrest. When someone suffers from cardiac arrest, fast response and treatment are essential while the probability of survival decrease by 10 percent in every minute that passes [1]. Using drones to deliver automated external defibrillator (AED) in rural areas will have an extra advantage especially when the area has a lot of terrain and ambulances will even have more difficulty reaching the patient and, in this situation, every second counts.
With a 4G/5G based drone for medical delivery, we will be able to reach many areas that extend to many miles in a very short time with optimal and full control of our drone and in a very safe way. While time is important this will help save a lot of lives and patients who could experience cardiac arrest. Sudden cardiac death occurs quickly and usually completely unexpectedly. Approximately 65,000 people in Germany die from it every year. This is 20 percent of all deaths caused by cardiovascular diseases. After a severely abnormal heart rhythm develops, a cardiac arrest follows within minutes. During a cardiac arrest, a person loses consciousness and their normal breathing stops [2].
In order to improve the chances of survival in rural areas in Germany, our team at the European Campus Rottal-Inn is researching the best method for using drones for medical equipment transportation and especially the AEDs. We are investigating and raising many questions in all areas to make the process of the delivery mission fast, accurate and most importantly safe.
In our future plans, we will try to get the required permissions for flying our drone behind a visual line of sight in selected areas in Pfarrkirchen and compare the time reference between the drone arrival and the ambulance arrival.
It’s also important to mention the importance of the Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) which is a lifesaving technique that is useful in many emergencies, such as a heart attack or near drowning, in which someone's breathing or heartbeat has stopped. Every year, an estimated 350,000 persons in the United States have an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest; only approximately 10% survive. The probability of survival doubles when a bystander administers cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and uses an automated external defibrillator (AED) before emergency medical services (EMS) arrive, but bystander AED use occurs in less than 2% of cardiac arrests in the United States [2]. Survival is most likely when CPR and defibrillation are delivered within 5 minutes after the start of a cardiac arrest [3]; however, the median arrival time of EMS in the United States is 8 minutes and in remote areas can extend to 30 minutes [3]
Using AEDs does not require any extra skills, modern defibrillators are self-explanatory, where they tell you what to do and there is no chance of having a mistake. AEDs read the patient's ECG "Electrocardiogram" and if the patient has a normal heart rhythm, there will be no shock out of the defibrillator. And in the other hand if the patient has ventricular fibrillation the defibrillator will detect that and recommend an electric shock.
Anyway, the serious problem that we could face is actually finding a defibrillator. Even though the number of public-use defibrillators in cities is relatively high, only a few people know where they are in the event of an emergency. In rural areas defibrillators are rare. It could happen that the needed defibrillator is nearby but no one knows where it is exactly. The using of drones, flying to the desired location where the patient is, in a very short time and increase the chances of saving the patient, is a clear advantage for the patient. Drones can save lives in healthcare.
Reference:
[1] Recent advances and controversies in adult cardiopulmonary resuscitation - Wanis H Ibrahim https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2600120/
[2] Sudden Cardiac Death – Deutsches Zentrum für Herz-Kreislaufforschungs e.V.
https://dzhk.de/en/cardiovascular-diseases/diseases/sudden-cardiac-death/
[3] Drone Delivery of an Automated External Defibrillator - https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc1915956
[4] https://www.ericsson.com/en/blog/2020/2/drones-in-healthcare-canada