Provision of Bidirectional Remote Patient Care With an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

We report the world ’s first medication delivery with return blood sample collection from a patient living in an island community, using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as drone technology. Medical drones have shown potential to deliver life-saving supplies (eg, blood, vaccines, defibrillators) to un derdeveloped areas of the world and during emergencies.1,2 We recently employed a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) Wingcopter 178 drone under beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) conditions to deliver insulin and glucagon to the Aran Islands (Inis Mór Aerodrome, IATA: IOR / ICAO:EIIM) from Galwa y, Ireland (Connemara Airport, IATA: NNR / ICAO:EICA) and return with a hemoglobin (Hb) A1c specimen (37.4 km round-trip across the Atlantic Ocean).

Source: Mayo Clinic Proceedings - March 31, 2020 Category: Internal Medicine Authors: Derek T. O ’Keeffe, Kevin Johnson, Spyridoula Maraka Tags: Letter to the editor Source Type: research