A drone delivers medicine from a nearby pharmacy to the Deutsche Post headquarters in Bonn, Germany. The possibilities are many according to Cornelius Thiels, a general surgery resident who wrote in KevinMD.com. He said drones will not replace provider care, but perhaps they could deliver:
Blood to a hospital that’s running low
Medical supplies to mass casualty scenes (trauma gauze, tourniquets, medications, etc.)
Anti-venom or other rarely used or short half-life medications to rural providers
Short half-life medications to rural providers
Plasma, platelets, or cryoprecipitate to a hospital that doesn’t stock these products
Lab samples from small hospitals or clinics to regional labs
Prescriptions to home bound patients
Medications to patients on offshore vessels
Organs for transplantationdefibrillators to patients in cardiac arrest
As Amazon and Google are experiencing, there will be challenges, but innovation and entrepreneurship in healthcare are alive and well. Read more about the role of entrepreneurship in healthcare in Health Attitude.
