TY - JOUR
T1 - The promising future of drones in prehospital medical care and its application to battlefield medicine
AU - Braun, Jonathan
AU - Gertz, S. David
AU - Furer, Ariel
AU - Bader, Tarif
AU - Frenkel, Hagay
AU - Chen, Jacob
AU - Glassberg, Elon
AU - Nachman, Dean
PY - 2019/7/1
Y1 - 2019/7/1
N2 - Unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly referred to as drones, have been made widely available in recent years leading to an exponential growth in their roles and applications. The rapidly developing field of medical drones is on the verge of revolutionizing prehospital medicine enabling advanced health care delivery to once-inaccessible patients. The aim of this review is to clarify the basic technical properties of currently available medical drones and review recent advances and their usefulness in military and civilian health care missions. A thorough search was conducted using conventional medical literature databases and nonmedical popular search engines. The results indicate increasingly rapid incorporation of unmanned aerial vehicles into search and rescue missions, telemedicine assignments, medical supply routes, public health surveillance, and disaster management. Medical drones appear to be of great benefit for improving survivability of deployed forces on and off the battlefield. The emerging aerial medical delivery systems appear to provide particularly promising solutions for bridging some of the many serious gaps between third world health care systems and their western counterparts and between major metropolitan centers and distant rural communities. The global nature of drone-based health care delivery needs points to a need for an international effort between collaborating civilian and military medical forces to harness the currently available resources and novel emerging technologies for broader lifesaving capabilities. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Level V.
AB - Unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly referred to as drones, have been made widely available in recent years leading to an exponential growth in their roles and applications. The rapidly developing field of medical drones is on the verge of revolutionizing prehospital medicine enabling advanced health care delivery to once-inaccessible patients. The aim of this review is to clarify the basic technical properties of currently available medical drones and review recent advances and their usefulness in military and civilian health care missions. A thorough search was conducted using conventional medical literature databases and nonmedical popular search engines. The results indicate increasingly rapid incorporation of unmanned aerial vehicles into search and rescue missions, telemedicine assignments, medical supply routes, public health surveillance, and disaster management. Medical drones appear to be of great benefit for improving survivability of deployed forces on and off the battlefield. The emerging aerial medical delivery systems appear to provide particularly promising solutions for bridging some of the many serious gaps between third world health care systems and their western counterparts and between major metropolitan centers and distant rural communities. The global nature of drone-based health care delivery needs points to a need for an international effort between collaborating civilian and military medical forces to harness the currently available resources and novel emerging technologies for broader lifesaving capabilities. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Level V.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85068981294&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1097/TA.0000000000002221
DO - 10.1097/TA.0000000000002221
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C2 - 31246903
AN - SCOPUS:85068981294
SN - 2163-0755
VL - 87
SP - S28-S34
JO - Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery
JF - Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery
IS - 1S Suppl 1
ER -