A research team from France has analyzed the potential for drones to improve emergency response times in delivering automated external defibrillators (AEDs) to patients experiencing cardiac arrest outside hospital settings.
According to the British Heart Foundation, the UK experiences more than 30,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests annually where emergency medical services attempt resuscitation. Survival rates remain low, with fewer than one in 10 patients surviving such events, and some survivors experience neurological complications. Research indicates that every minute without CPR and defibrillation reduces survival chances by 10%.
The study examined 28,349 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests occurring between 2011 and 2024 across administrative areas in the Greater Paris region, excluding central Paris. Researchers cross-referenced these incidents with locations of 1,893 fixed AEDs. The analysis found significant accessibility gaps: only 30% of cardiac arrest cases occurred within 500 metres of the nearest fixed AED. Providing full ground-based coverage would require 1,712 additional fixed AEDs, while achieving 84.5% coverage would require 910 extra devices.
Drone-based delivery presented a more efficient alternative. Using 100 drone bases and 26 additional fixed AEDs, models showed over 97% of cardiac arrest cases would fall within either 500 metres of a fixed AED or approximately 4 kilometres of a drone base. With 200 drone bases and just four extra AEDs, coverage exceeded 99%. When evaluated against the five-minute ground transportation window, only 30-40% of cases currently had accessible AED access, though drone delivery in the modeled scenario reached virtually all cases within five minutes.
Researchers noted that drones for AED delivery are already operational in parts of Sweden and have proven effective. The study, not yet peer-reviewed, will be presented at the European Emergency Medicine Congress. Cost considerations remain important for real-world implementation alongside the technical feasibility of such systems.
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