Are drones a legitimate means of transportation in a healthcare environment?
Drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are aircraft with no on-board crew or passengers. They have been around ever since the first successful flight in 1903. Drones have had many uses since the early 20th century and now have moved into the commercial sphere. The cost of a drone for personal use has significantly decreased in the last 10 years. On a global level, healthcare has been observing the use of drones to transport medications, blood, lab samples, therapy equipment, disaster assistance in both urban and rural areas. Public safety can be a concern and policies for drone use vary from one country to another.
YouTube LADAPT immersion drone piloting for people with disabilities →
Emergency services
“The use of Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) by the emergency services” report discusses a pilot project on emergency service providers in Europe, a mountain rescue team from Ireland, Copenhagen Fire Department, Wales fire and rescue services, and Reykjavík, Iceland search and rescue. In the use case, 60 instance drones were used and the majority were for a missing person. Weather conditions in the local areas played a big role in the deployment of drones.
Drones: A new tool in supply chain
Mobile devices are becoming inexpensive to rural areas in developed nations as well as developing nations. Local healthcare workers are implementing new tools and innovations to solve current supply chain issues. In small and rural communities global access to blood and other supplies are costly to maintain. The supply of blood is special due to cost and expiration in 5 days. In Tanzania: “A scientist at Ifakara Health Institute who had created the database to track nationwide medical emergencies. Using cellphones, health workers would send a text message whenever a patient needed blood or other critical supplies. Trouble is, while the system collected real-time information about dying patients, the east African country’s rough terrain and poor supply chain often kept them from getting timely help. “We were essentially looking at a database of death,” Rinaudo says. Tanzania’s drone delivery service, in partnership with the country’s ministry of health, is set to launch in its capital city, Dodoma.”
Rwanda is another interesting example: “In Rwanda, Africa, drones were used to transport blood products and medicines to critical access hospitals and remote regions. Hospitals ordered blood and medicines via text messages and received the supplies within 30 minutes. The ability to transport blood is important; a single patient with massive bleeding can easily deplete the blood supply in medium-sized hospitals, and larger hospitals can run low on certain blood types.”
Drones Deliver Healthcare in Rural Madagascar YouTube →
Public safety of drone use
Public safety is always a concern. There have been commercial accidents with drones yet none in the area of healthcare. “The popularity of remote-controlled aircraft such as UASs is constantly increasing around the globe for recreational or civilian use, the latter including humanitarian response and disaster relief.” In healthcare policy, good governance and procedures need to be placed for transportion of biohazard. “A specific regulation should also be issued to police drone manufacturing, functioning, and potential healthcare usage. Notably, transportation of biological samples is a unique healthcare activity.”
Denmark and WHINN
In Odense, Denmark Oct 10 -12, 2017 robots and drones will be discussed at WHINN. In Odense, the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) has established the Unmanned Aerial Systems Drone Center at Southern Danish University. It is “striving by 2020 to be recognized by industry, academia, and government as the premier location to go for education, research, innovation, collaboration, and technology transfer — both in Denmark and for all of Europe.”
Drones are not new, but new for commercial use in a rural setting for clinical use, disaster relief, supply chain, and clinical outcomes. The future of healthcare and drones as tools to improve patient outcome is here. You are welcome to attend WHINN in Odense, Denmark to see the future of healthcare innovation in the area drones and robotics.
This article was originally published on the WHINN.
Research, thoughts, and opinions are my own. Further references can be found on my personal sites innonurse.info and ammende.info.
