Developing and Testing Drone-Delivered AEDs for Cardiac Arrests In America
Principal Investigators
Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center
- Professor, Department of Emergency Medicine and Internal Medicine
RESTORe-CARE Project Aims
The overall goal of this project is to design, develop, and pilot test an emergency healthcare drone delivery system suitable for rural communities that can deliver AEDs to OHCA locations more rapidly than can be achieved with current first responder and EMS systems. Our goal is to determine whether this method of AED delivery can be achieved rapidly enough to justify a future clinical trial directly testing its ability to improve OHCA survival. To achieve this goal, we will address three Specific Aims.
Aim 1: Define options for emergency healthcare drone station configurations best suited for rural communities and use these findings to help design future drone AED delivery programs in rural communities.
Aim 2: Building upon Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approved drone-as-first responder (DFR) programs in two urban United States (US) regions, we will develop procedural and operational infrastructure for drone AED delivery that can be adapted to rural communities.
Aim 3: Pilot test the safety and effectiveness of emergency drone AED delivery models in 2 urban and 4 rural communities in Forsyth County, NC and James City County, VA.
