Using Drones to Decrease Time to Defibrillation

Using a simulated out-of-hospital cardiac arrest scenario, the authors compared the time from an emergency call to resource deployment and arrival for drone-delivered automatic external defibrillator (AED) and ground vehicle-based emergency medical services (EMS).  Mean time to dispatch was 3 sec for the drone and 3 min for EMS.  Over a median flight distance of 3.2 km, mean time to arrival was 5:21 min for the drone vs 22:00 min for EMS.