Drones for Automated External Defibrillator Delivery: Where Do We Stand?

Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) is an important cause of mortality and disability worldwide. The health care community hoped that, with the development of the automated external defibrillator (AED), the mortality and functional outcomes of patients with OHCAs would improve. Despite their effectiveness, their use in OHCA has not yet become common practice. Unfortunately, in 18-59% of cases, public access AEDs were deemed to be in poorly accessible areas or not available all of the time.

We present the existing literature on the implementation of drone delivery of AEDs to improve the response time of the emergency medical services.

Test flights and mathematical/geographic models have been used to assess the effectiveness of drones in delivering AEDs to patients with OHCA. The results of those studies showed promising outcomes given that drone usage led to improved delivery times of AEDs compared with emergency medical services delivery.

While drones have the potential to dramatically improve cardiac arrest patient care, further studies are needed to evaluate their effectiveness in real-life clinical scenarios.