![]() ![]() They are working with the state on integrating the medical drones with existing emergency systems, and Subbarao says he hopes to have a real-life medical drone in operation before the end of the year. Department of Homeland Security, federal law enforcement agencies and the United Nations. They have already held several successful demonstrations, including one in December for representatives of the U.S. is 55 pounds.) So far, the project has been financed by the schools, but the inventors said they will soon begin seeking grants to continue the work. They now have three rotary-winged drone prototypes capable of carrying medical kits weighing up to 20 pounds. Then, looking for additional expertise, they joined forces with the unmanned aircraft systems program at Hinds Community College in Raymond, Mississippi, and its director, Dennis Lott. started building several interactive medical kits geared toward different types of disasters (tornadoes, shootings) and the first two drone prototypes in 2014. Subbarao and a medical student named Guy Paul Cooper Jr. The next year, Field Innovation Team, a nonprofit that devises technological solutions to disasters, ran a test off the coast of Cape May, New Jersey, to carry a blood sample from a ship two miles out in the Atlantic to a doctor on shore. In the U.S., Remote Area Medical, a nonprofit that delivers medical care to isolated regions around the world, did a test drop of medications in a mountainous area of southwest Virginia in 2015. The most extensive use of drones for medical purposes appears to be in Rwanda, where last year drones started dropping medical supplies to hospitals. By law, non-military drones can only be operated within the pilot’s line of sight, during the daytime, and at altitudes no higher than 400 feet. ![]() Emergency management officials from Dallas, New York City, Phoenix and Washington, D.C., have reached out to him, as have officials from Europe, the Middle East and Africa.ĭrone technology has been around for at least half a century, and for years people in health care have speculated about the medical use of drones, for example to transport medicines, organs for transplants, blood supplies and anti-venom serums.īut to date, very few of those possibilities have been realized, in part because of the federal rules governing drones. Subbarao said he has gotten inquiries from state officials in Arizona, Louisiana, New York and Texas. It appears to be the most advanced attempt to equip a drone with audiovisual equipment so doctors and survivors can interact in an emergency. Subbarao’s project, which he began the year after the Hattiesburg tornado, has now produced three prototypes and conducted several demonstration flights. His answer: a drone outfitted with audiovisual equipment and medical supplies.īy combining the two technologies, drones and telemedicine, a doctor miles away could instruct a layman at the scene in how to provide rudimentary, but perhaps life-saving, medical care. That research led Subbarao to wonder if there was a way to deliver medical care before emergency responders could navigate the mayhem that comes with a natural or man-made disaster. In some cases, the students found, emergency medical responders had been slowed by fallen trees, power lines and debris as they tried to reach the injured. The tornado, with winds up to 170 mph, had injured at least 80 people. In the aftermath of the twister, Subbarao, an associate dean and disaster medicine specialist at the William Carey University College of Osteopathic Medicine in Hattiesburg, sent his students out to study how quickly emergency medical teams had responded to the disaster. It barreled down Hardy Street “like a bowling ball,” said Dr. The towering tornado that struck Hattiesburg, Mississippi, in 2013 ripped roofs off houses, twisted steel girders as though they were Play-Doh, obliterated buildings, and tossed cars through the air like toys. ![]() ![]() © William Carey University College of Osteopathic Medicine The drones will enable doctors to instruct survivors at the scene of a disaster to give medical aid. A prototype of an interactive medical drone being developed in Mississippi that could be in use by the end of the year. ![]()
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