Unmanned Aerial Systems and Healthcare: Possibilities and Challenges

Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) have an enormous number of possible commercial and personal uses ranging from the basic delivery of packages to environmental monitoring and disaster relief support. Their possible use in emergency situations from the delivery of an automated external defibrillator to cardiac arrest victims, to 'search and rescue' operations, provides an indication of how useful the technology can be. Before the widespread adoption of UAS within the public and commercial sectors is achieved a number of challenges need to be overcome, especially those pertaining to public risk in the areas of safety, privacy and security. This contribution initially examines the proposed and active usage of UAS within healthcare, not only for emergency medical services and drug/blood delivery but also 'search and rescue' operations. The challenges to UAV usage for healthcare related services, as well as the current evolving state of UAS operational regulations are then discussed.