Summary reader response Draft 3: Healthcare Drones

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The article written by Balasubramanian (2022), "Drones May Become ‘The Next Big Thing’ In Healthcare Delivery", healthcare drone integration has the potential to change patient access to crucial medical services in remote and underprivileged locations, improving health outcomes and lowering healthcare costs. One such company making use of these drones is Zipline. According to Hand Wiki (n.d), Zipline drones are autonomous, and can fly between 80 and 120 meters above ground and at a cruise speed of 101 km/h to their destination in 45 minutes. Upon arrival, the drone descends at a height of 20 to 32 meters above the ground and parachute-drops the package. The drones comprise of an inner carbon-fiber frame and an exterior polystyrene shell. The exterior shell is made up of polystyrene which is a brittle material so that in the case of the drone crashing, it would break apart upon impact, dissipating energy and reduce the overall form of impact. According to an article written by Bhatt and Goe (2017), the carbon-fiber frame allows the drone to be lightweight and durable as the material is high in stiffness, tensile strength, low weight to strength ratio, corrosion, and fatigue resistant, and electrically conductive. The drone also operates on quickly replaceable batteries which allow fast and efficient turnaround between flights and a single propeller with two propellers as back up. According to Wang, Jun Wu, and Huang (2018), the drone is also deployed by a "hybrid energy storage system, consisting of a battery and supercapacitor, reduces the volume and weight of the energy storage system", enabling the drone to be launched quickly and efficiently at 113km/h in just 0.33 seconds.

The implementation of drones in the healthcare industry boosts efficiency by delivering medical supplies and samples to help diagnose people with health problems in rural areas. Drone delivery can also reduce carbon emissions. Unpredictable weather can affect the efficiency of the drones. 

The use of drones in the healthcare industry primarily focuses on delivering medical supplies as fast and efficiently as possible. As reported by Balasubramanian (2022), the utilization of drones for delivery had already demonstrated benefits for emergency medical services. For instance, a drone was able to transport an automated external defibrillator (AED) to a 71-year-old individual experiencing cardiac arrest outdoors before the ambulance arrived, ultimately saving their life. Additionally, drones can effectively reach rural areas where the terrain may be challenging for ground transportation.

Apart from just delivering medical supplies, drones can also deliver samples for testing to help diagnose patients with health problems. According to Brown (2022), by transporting urine or blood samples from residences to hospitals, drones can aid medical practitioners in making faster diagnoses of patients' conditions. Since it would be difficult for people who live in remote areas or have health issues to go to provide such samples, having drones pick them up speeds up diagnosis and medicine recommendations. Also, to transport vital items like blood, tissue, and other lab samples between hospitals, labs, and other medical facilities, human delivery personnel are currently being used. This procedure will inevitably be delayed since healthcare workers must wait for people to transport samples from one facility to another. Additionally, people might unintentionally contaminate the medical facilities (Transporting Lab Samples, 2022). With the aid of drones, they can speed up the time it takes to get a sample to hospitals or labs for testing while maintaining the required levels of quality control for samples that may be both time and temperature sensitive (Brown, 2022).


Using drones to deliver supplies and samples, it also reduces carbon emissions by reducing the need for ground transportation. It was found that “greenhouse-gas emissions per parcel were 84% lower for drones than for diesel trucks and drones also consumed up to 94% less energy per parcel than trucks” (Kreier, 2022, para 2). Additionally, the use of drones can make healthcare services more accessible in rural areas, minimizing the need for patients to travel long distances for care.

 

Despite the significant impact of drone delivery on the healthcare industry, there are still disadvantages to its usage. One disadvantage of drone delivery is being affected by weather. Different weather conditions can affect drone mobility, for example, rain can damage the electronics and high winds can cause loss of control of the drones (MacQuarrie, 2021). There have been cases where delivery of medicines was disrupted due to harsh winds (Kharpal, 2014), which risks patients not receiving the medical aid needed. With the advancement of technology, drones will have to be upgraded to withstand harsh weather conditions to be able to deliver supplies effectively and efficiently.

 

In conclusion, medical drones have the potential to revolutionize healthcare delivery by improving access to medical services, reducing costs, and facilitating faster diagnoses. Companies like Zipline have been making use of such technology to deliver medical supplies and samples, cutting down on energy use and carbon emissions. However, a drawback which was mentioned above would require improvement of the drones, to guarantee that patients can receive medical care without any disruptions. The use of drones in the healthcare industry has a bright future due to the ongoing technological improvements and rising consumer demand for more effective and efficient healthcare delivery systems. 


References

Balasubramanian, S. (2022) Drones May Become ‘The Next Big Thing’ In Healthcare Delivery. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/saibala/2022/01/09/drones-may-become-the-next-big-thing-in-healthcare-delivery/?sh=7c739b951e9b

Bhatt, P., Goe, A. (2017, June 9). Carbon Fibers: Production, Properties and Potential Use. Material Science Research India. https://www.materialsciencejournal.org/vol14no1/carbon-fibres-production-properties-and-potential-use/

Brown, R. (2022, July 7). Challenges faced by drones in healthcare - Drones can help improve healthcare, but it is still a new technology. Robotics Tomorrow. https://www.roboticstomorrow.com/story/2022/07/challenges-faced-by-drones-in-healthcare-drones-can-help-improve-healthcare-but-it-is-still-a-new-technology-/19113/#:~:text=In%20addition%20to%20distributing%20medical,samples%20from%20homes%20to%20hospitals.

Clinical Lab Products. (2022, Dec 28). Drones May Be The Future of Transporting Lab Samples. https://clpmag.com/diagnostic-technologies/anatomic-pathology/specimen-collection-handling/drones-may-be-the-future-of-transporting-lab-samples/

Company: Zipline (drone delivery). (n.d.). HandWiki https://handwiki.org/wiki/Company:Zipline_(drone_delivery)

Kharpal, A. (2014, September 26). DHL drone delivery cancelled due to bad weather. CNBC.  https://www.cnbc.com/2014/09/26/drone-deliveries-not-if-its-windy.html

Kreier, F. (2022, August 5). Drones bearing parcels deliver big carbon savings. Nature. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02101-3#:~:text=A%20study%20comparing%20the%20environmental,parcel%20than%20did%20the%20trucks.

MacQuarrie, D. (2021, June 21). What's standing in the way of widespread drone deliveries? The weather. DroneDJ https://dronedj.com/2021/06/21/the-bad-weather-may-be-a-roadblock-to-drone-delivery-schemes/

Wang, Z., Jun Wu, Huang, S. (2018, June 7). A Hybrid power system for unmanned aerial vehicle electromagnetic launcher. Scitation.  https://aip.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/1.5041153\

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