The drone ambulance [A-UAS]: golden bullet or just a blank?

Defibrillation within the first minutes after sudden cardiac arrest can save many quality-adjusted life years. Yet, despite enormous investments, 'healthcare' is still unable to provide this for the majority of patients. Emergency Medical Services (EMS) often have a too long mean response time and many issues surround Public Access Defibrillation programs. In this article the authors argue that automatic external defibrillator (AED)-equipped drones could be the 'magic bullet'. They are easily deployed and fast, and have a relatively low operational cost. As such they could rapidly bring an AED next to the victim, irrespective of most geographical circumstances, give visual feedback and situational awareness to the EMS dispatcher and thus assist a bystander to provide better cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Although there are many real-life barriers to actual deployment, the authors argue these might all get solved once they have solved the described technological issues.

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  • English

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Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 01669092
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Files: TRIS
  • Created Date: May 17 2018 1:37PM