The inability of ambulances to reach accident sites in a timely manner claims the lives of thousands of people every year. This prototype provides a clear explanation of the urgent circumstance of a drone arriving at the accident scenario equipped with several sensors. Moreover, the number of fatalities is declining as more people adopt this technology.
It saves lives on both ends, the patient and the healthcare provider. Various sensors can be installed on the health drone to provide accurate readings.
The operator can call a specific number to pinpoint the caller’s location and guide them via GPS. When the medical drone or quadcopter reaches the emergency scene, it can take readings on various physical parameters in real-time.
Before a regular ambulance can get there, a flying medical drone will have already arrived. The proposed prototype model is a means of aiding those in urgent need of assistance.
What Is A Drone Ambulance?
The term “ambulance drone” refers to a specific type of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) used by medical teams to transport patients, equipment, and supplies during times of crisis. Since the initial few minutes of an emergency are crucial, medical responders constantly seek new ways to get to patients more quickly. Here’s where air ambulances drone comes in handy.
These portable machines make it easier to offer rapid response care by transporting lifesaving technologies such as medication, CPR kits, and automated external defibrillators (AEDs).
These Are The Five Advantages Of Using A Drone Ambulance
Drones are a game-changing piece of equipment for any medical response team, thanks to their many useful features. Keeping this in mind, let’s examine some of the most salient advantages of deploying drones in times of medical crisis.
- Disaster Aid & Strengthen Emergency Responses
There are many ways in which drones might aid in disaster relief efforts. Sending a drone into a disaster zone can help first responders assess the situation, find survivors, analyze structures, transport aid, and extinguish fires.
The poor response time after Hurricane Katrina was a significant problem. Thousands of people huddled in the Superdome for up to five days following the hurricane without access to food, water, or medical supplies.
While bureaucratic inertia undoubtedly played a role, the magnitude of the tragedy severely hampered responders’ ability to utilize transportation to bring aid to places in need.
Since drones don’t require any particular setup to operate, they can help with logistics by speeding up the delivery of much-needed supplies to areas in a hurry.
Keeping up with the latest risks in a rapidly evolving environment constantly challenges emergency response teams. The most recent case is COVID-19, compelling healthcare professionals to try novel approaches to reacting to and treating vast numbers of patients.
Drones can aid in post-disaster surveillance and medical response by facilitating victim location and helping deliver immediate care. Drones can simplify it for healthcare providers to gather information and determine where to send aid teams. This can reduce wasted time and energy during times of crisis.
- Technology Based On Infrared Cameras
Drones equipped with specialized infrared cameras would greatly help emergency personnel. Drones’ infrared cameras allow them to see clearly in smoke and fly in weather that would prevent air tankers and humans from taking off. Firefighters can utilize infrared imagery from above to better see where flames are most concentrated within a burning home.
Police officers can use infrared to enter areas where dangerous individuals are thought to be hiding. The employment of infrared technology to notify police of a suspect’s whereabouts is already commonplace.
One of the Boston Marathon bombers, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was found mainly thanks to forward-looking infrared equipment mounted aboard a helicopter. An armored truck equipped with a robotic arm removed the sheet hiding Tsarnaev after he was spotted using infrared technology.
Suppose a drone could perform both of these tasks. Was there a way for it to be done better, quicker, or safer?
- Maximize Scalability
Medical responders must carefully monitor the population in places with seasonal variations and high tourist traffic.
Let’s take the case of a coastal town that sees a swarm of visitors in the summer but empties entirely in the winter. A medical response team in this situation could deploy additional drones for more efficient triage. They might reduce their operations during the off-season when demand is lower.
Drones are beneficial at festivals and fairs, where heat exhaustion and alcohol and drug abuse are common. In these situations, medical teams can build up their use of nearby drones during events and subsequently reduce their presence once the event is over.
- Improve Combat Zone Security
Military personnel face significant difficulties providing emergency medical assistance, especially in real-world combat scenarios involving many team members. Medical professionals frequently risk their lives when transferring supplies and treating injured soldiers.
Drones have allowed military medical teams to quickly get supplies to their teammates without risking traveling into enemy territory. This method enables helpful supplies like bandages and medicines to be passed along to other team members without increasing their risk of danger.
- Quicker Response Times To Get To Inaccessible Areas
Traditional transportation obstacles, such as traffic bottlenecks and closed highways, are irrelevant to ambulance drones. Because of how they’re built, they can bypass traffic and fly straight to their destinations.
Using drones, teams can transfer supplies to the scene of medical emergencies before the workforce arrives. As a result, those in need don’t have to wait too long for assistance to come and can get the care they need right away, along with their loved ones and friends.
It’s not uncommon for emergencies to occur in far-flung, inaccessible locales. An extremely allergic hiker could get stung by a bee mile from the nearest parking lot and much further from the nearest hospital. The same holds for the possibility of a heart attack on the twentieth story of a skyscraper.
Both situations pose substantial logistical challenges for rescue teams. However, drones can get to the location of an injured person considerably more quickly because they may fly directly there while carrying essential supplies. This can buy precious time until help arrives, increasing the likelihood of survival.
Take Away
The ability of ambulance drones to transfer patients to hospital emergency rooms is a common topic among medical professionals. This was only doable recently. Because of their limited size, first-generation ambulance drones can only carry medical supplies. Passenger drones have yet to reach the threshold of widespread commercial availability.
However, drone technology is advancing, and some businesses are already exploring using it in human transportation.
