Medicine Research Assignment: Use Of Drones In Health Care (Term Paper Sample)

Use of drones in health care
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Contents TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u Use of drones in health care PAGEREF _Toc462305643 \h 3Introduction PAGEREF _Toc462305644 \h 3The rise of drone technology in healthcare PAGEREF _Toc462305645 \h 3Approaches to Innovation of drones PAGEREF _Toc462305646 \h 4The imperative of drone technology in healthcare PAGEREF _Toc462305647 \h 5Environment and Sustainability issues relating to drones PAGEREF _Toc462305648 \h 7Implications of drones in society PAGEREF _Toc462305649 \h 8Patterns of Innovation PAGEREF _Toc462305650 \h 9Innovation and Competitiveness PAGEREF _Toc462305652 \h 10The future of drones in healthcare PAGEREF _Toc462305653 \h 11Conclusion PAGEREF _Toc462305654 \h 11References PAGEREF _Toc462305655 \h 13
Use of drones in health care
Introduction
Innovation is the most important factor in the success of any organization. Technology has provided many tools that can be used in creating components that can change the industry. Drones have led to a new way of transport and delivery of products from one place to another. Improved health care has been a primary responsibility of all governments; the aim is to ensure that the citizens are able to get adequate and fast access to healthcare. This means that governments have to heavily invest in infrastructure to ensure that the access is effective. Major challenges are experienced by people who live in rural areas or away from medical facilities (Perlman 2016). The easiest they can access is a medical facility which may not offer adequate services especially in screening and diagnosis of conditions. The rise of drones has offered an alternative solution to medical services where blood samples can be picked from the patient and dropped to a major facility and then return the results with the appropriate prescription. Therefore the idea behind drones in the medical sector is disaster relief through the distribution of logistics. Drones can be manually operated carrying a load of around five pounds flying within a range of 20 to 60 miles. They have been preferred in medical logistics because they can travel over closed roads and bad terrain without risking the flight crew since they do not carry people on board. This report discusses the emergence of drones in the medical sector analyzing how they can increase the quality of life through easing medical logistics (Breschi, Malerba and Orsenigo 2000; Corrigan 2016).
The rise of drone technology in healthcare
Drones came from the desire to have unmanned vehicles; this technology enables sustainable level flights powered by a electric jet engine. The early use of drones for domestic purposes dates back to surveillance use by U.S customs and border protection agency. The drones were based on predator surveillance cameras that enabled the detection and arrest of smugglers. Later the technology advanced to the search for a survivor of disasters and rescue operations (Schilling 2010). Today government agencies and private companies have adopted drone technology for carrying out small-scale tasks that require little logistics. They are being used in transport services where they deliver parcels and packages to carry out door to door operations and transport services in remote areas. According to researchers in Mayo Clinic, air delivery options in healthcare are limited leading to the need to connect between large academic hospitals and surrounding rural hospitals. Drones enable quick access to medical services by a patient as compared to ambulance services. The need to save high-risk patients like the ones with cardio vascular attacks and snake bites has led to the application of drone technology in the health care sector. This has led to many governments like the US and Canada passing legislations that allows the use of drones in healthcare (Sifton, 2012).
Approaches to Innovation of drones
Drones came from the need to have unmanned vehicles that can be used in war; the strategy behind this innovation was to minimize casualties. The technology dates back to the first Australian attacks ob Italy by use of balloons. Later after world war one three standard E-1 aircraft were converted to drones, the technology enabled launching monoplanes from warships under autopilot in war. This development later led to development of radio-controlled pilotless aircraft. Radio planes later followed the development of OQ-2 target drone with piston powered drones (Scozzi and Garavelli 2005). This development led to the use of radio frequency in the development of drones for use in war. Reconnaissance platforms were later used in the 1950s with the Falconer in developing advanced drones that worked better during missions. Later USSR developed reconnaissance drones that were based on croaked secrecy, unclear and contradictory design. This led to the use of drones in active combats on both land and sea. These target drones were launched on aircraft.
Modern era drones start being taken seriously in after a successful Israel attack on Syria in 1982. This, therefore, led to the development of miniature drones, endurance drones, beamed power drones, solar drones and Amber. After the successful use of drones in war, they are currently being used domestically by governments like USA and Canada. Currier (2012) suggests that today drones are being used in all areas of life to carry out risk-free operations that have no casualties. Scientists are working hard to ensue drones can be effective in the civilian environment. Many companies like Amazon have launched the use of drones in their business environment. The technology is used in a wide range of business areas include health care.
The imperative of drone technology in healthcare
The need to increase access to healthcare through efficient means has led to the need to use drones in healthcare. This is due to the unequal the distribution of healthcare in the society. Remote areas do not have equal access to healthcare as compared to those in urban areas. Therefore drones can offer an alternative to healthcare option is needed to enable the rural areas and largely underdeveloped areas can access the same health facilities (Goodman 2010). The connection between rural health care and the best equipped urban facilities can be achieved through proper logistics that will enable proper transport of samples from the rural areas to proper laboratories for testing and immediate transfer of results to the rural facility. Depending on the nature of the rural area and the country, logistics difficulties vary across different demographics. In some countries and places it takes almost a whole week to transport a patient from a facility to a major equipped hospital. Since air transport is expensive and not everybody can afford, access to healthcare by patients becomes a challenge (Ovrov 2012).
According to experts in health care, using drones will be more cost effective since they take very little time to transport samples from one place to another. They can land in any location and their lack of flight crew minimizes risks and the costs that are required to run the flight. This makes their use in transport more effective than all the available means of transport. Healthcare samples like blood are unique with very high expiry rates expiring within a very short time. Therefore their transport needs to be in a very specialized way that will ensure that they are safe. Since rural facilities do not have blood banks, they rely on larger hospitals who can stock blood for them. These smaller rural hospitals only request blood on demand which makes them less likely to manage emergency conditions. Drones offer the required alternative by standing between the two healthcare facilities through provision of adequate and fast logistics. About from blood there are certain drugs which are also expensive and require certain storage conditions that may also not be available n smaller hospitals. Therefore drones can be used to transport through flight delivery of blood within different facilities (Finn and Write 2012).
Therefore drones will transform healthcare delivery by linking patients to better health facilities. Further patients will be able to order health related packages like blood and crucial drugs that are not locally available. Through an emergency line; an order and delivery is requested by the patient through booking. The drone will locate the location of the patient through using a GPS locator based on the caller location. The delivery will therefore be made at the exact place since the GPS coordinates will capture the place of the call. This will therefore change healthcare delivery to fast and efficient delivery of services.
Adaptation of the society to the technology will be easy since the drone will be remotely controlled by an operator. However, the technology is user friendly and interactive making it easy for the patient to understand how to operate the technology. The drone operates both audio and written communication messaging that guides the user on how to pick the delivery and release the drone (Trimble 2008).
Environment and Sustainability issues relating to drones
The increasing rate of fumes in the atmosphere from carbon emissions is a major concern for the use of drones. Environmental analysts suggest that the rise of drones will increase environment effects based on the nature of materials that are used in drone technology. Experts have questioned the lifetime of drones and whether the materials used to design them are environmental friendly. However carbon emissions from drones can be reduced through the design of solar powered drones and the need to reduce accidents through crushing. Therefore safety regulation by governments and global bodies like the UN and European Commission need to develop safety standards that apply on a global scale. This will ...