Defibrillator drones to boost cardiac arrest survival
Defibrillator drones to boost cardiac arrest survival
The life-saving kit is carried by the drone CREDIT:
ANDREAS CLAESSON
By Henry Bodkin 13 JUNE 2017 • 4:01PM
Defibrillator-carrying drones promise to dramatically
boost survival rates for people suffering cardiac arrest after a new study
found they could reach patients four times faster than an ambulance.
The fully automated eight-rota machines can fly,
unimpeded by traffic at up to 50mph and deliver an easy-to-use heart-starting
kit to critically ill patients.
The technology should enable more NHS emergency units to
meet the eight-minute response target for the most urgent cases, which has
slipped badly in recent years.
Research indicates that for every minute that passes
between a person collapsing due to cardiac arrest and defibrillation, the chances
of survival decrease by 10 per cent.
In the trial, run by the Karolinska Institute in Sweden,
drones responded to 18 simulated cardiac arrests within a six-mile radius of
their base, beating the ambulance every time.
The machines were airborne within three seconds of being
allocated to a new patient and took an average of five minutes and 21 seconds
to reach their destination, compared with 22 minutes for the ambulance.
Good Samaritans can be instructed how to use the
defibrillator down the phone CREDIT: ANDREAS CALESSON
There was an overall median reduction in response time of
16 minutes.
Developers hope that bystanders will be easily able to
attach the defibrillator pads to the patient’s chest, while being talked
through the procedure by paramedics on the phone or even through a
microphone-speaker system installed on the drone.
Defibrillators have been increasingly installed in public
places in recent years, however many members of the public do not think to look
for one in an emergency.
Certified by the Swedish Transportation Agency, the
drones used in the trial were equipped with a global positioning system, a
high-definition camera and communicated via the 3G network.
"Saving 16 minutes is likely to be clinically
important," the researchers wrote.
"None the less, further test flights, technological
development, and evaluation of integration with dispatch centers and aviation
administrators are needed."
The proportion of the most critical cases responded to by
NHS paramedics within eight minutes has gone down from just below 80 per cent
in 2011 to 65 per cent last year, according to Health Foundation research.
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