New study shows drone delivery of defibrillators to be life-saving and cost-effective

A new study has found that using drones to deliver defibrillators is cost-effective and likely to improve clinical outcomes for patients.

Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) is a significant cause of mortality and morbidity, for which timely defibrillation is essential. The research team, led by Muhammad Maaz at the University of Toronto, proposes drone delivery as a means to improve response time and notes practical examples.

Using data from 22,017 OHCAs in Ontario, Canada over 10 years, the researchers developed a comprehensive computational framework combining machine learning, optimization and a Markov microsimulation model to provide an economic evaluation of 964 different drone networks across a wide range of sizes and configurations.

All 964 drone networks were found to be cost-effective. In addition, the average drone response times were 32 percent to 71 percent shorter than standard care. “There were 1,855 (8.4 percent) survivors to hospital discharge in standard care, which increased by 21 percent to 46 percent across the 20 drone networks,” the study paper states.