Drones Could Be The New Delivery System For Patients
In what we predicted nearly 2 years ago in a post about the possibilities of drones, drones may soon be the new delivery system for patients. The problem was never really with transporting supplies by drone, but with keeping the supplies cool. Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers have figured out how to keep blood, meds and vaccines cool during the flight so they don’t get ruined.
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“If the blood somehow was changed or destroyed in transport, then none of it matters,” said Dr. Timothy Amukele, a pathologist and director of the Hopkins Bayview Medical Center’s clinical laboratories, who has spent the last 18 months on a team perfecting refrigeration on drones for transporting meds.
Amukele published his findings on drones transporting while refrigerated in the journal Transfusion in November of 2016. His findings showed no biological change in the blood that was packed on the drone with specifically designed coolers during the test flights. The flights that test the blood packs lasted around 26 minutes and covered 12 miles at 328 feet above ground. So far he has found no other way to advance the temperature problem beyond that.
The other problems with this whole this is of course: getting the okay from the FAA and regulatory approvals. He’ll also need to test supplies other than packs of blood. One success doesn’t mean that other trials would go as smoothly.
“Drones may become a realistic option,” said Ian Weston, executive director of the American Trauma Society, a membership organization for trauma care providers.
One of the biggest reasons that this technology would be helpful would be because that some patients can’t be reached by ambulance or helicopter in time to receive treatment.
Others aren’t so sure about the use of drones to transport to patients.
“If we could do it, but now we have to ask if we should do it. It’s an issue of risk, benefits and costs,” Dr. Thomas M. Scalea, Shock Trauma’s physician-in-chief said. “If you could devise an incredibly reliable way to deliver what you want to deliver and be quicker than going on the roads, and you could make it as cheap as driving, then you’ve got something. We’re a little ways away from that, though now that they’ve demonstrated proof of concept, it’s possible to ask the questions.”
I think that this is something that should be looked into by every healthcare provider in the nation. The goal is to treat a patient. If this is something that will help in that goal, then it should get as much testing as possible to assure that saving of lives.
“Ultimately we think drones will serve different purposes in different places,” Amukele said. “There will be a lot of collaboration to figure that out.”
(Via Baltimore Sun)
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