Proponents of rural health equity are buzzing over newly published research illustrating the efficacy of drones in delivering automated external defibrillators (AEDs) to patients in geographically rural communities to improve outcomes for patients experiencing cardiac arrest and related life-threatening injuries.
AEDs are portable devices designed to provide a shock to one’s heart rhythm to bring it back to normal functioning when a patient experiences cardiac arrest outside a hospital setting. Each year, over 350,000 cardiac arrests occur in non-hospital environments, resulting in only a roughly 10% survival rate, according to the American Heart Association. As the use of an AED administered by a bystander can potentially triple a patient’s survival rate, the research supporting the effectiveness of drones in the fast delivery of AEDs is being strongly embraced by health equity advocates.
The research study at hand included a simulation in North Carolina, which found that AED transport by drone advanced the five-minute response time for AED arrival from 24% to 77% in urban regions, and from 10% to 23% in rural geographies. While the gains in AED delivery in urban areas exceeded those in rural areas, the researchers noted that future models may be fine-tuned to reduce delivery times in rural areas to a greater degree.
It has been long demonstrated that rural patients experience less health access and poorer outcomes than their urban counterparts and, therefore, this drone research has the potential to be the foundation for other highly transformative developments across many medical and health care disciplines.
We will continue to follow this drone-related research and provide updates here at www.StrongHeroes.org as to any other health equity developments that emerge in this exciting area.
