Summary Reader Response Draft 1

Balasubramanian in "Drones May Become ‘The Next Big Thing’ In Healthcare Delivery"(2022) explains the uses and impact drones have in the healthcare industry. Balasubramanian mentioned that drones have the potential to revolutionize healthcare delivery by providing access to hard-to-reach patients, and delivering healthcare supplies and goods. Drones also have also been used for telehealth, virtual care, delivering Covid-19 vaccines, and dispatching automated external defibrillators (AEDs) to save out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) patients. In a recent study conducted by the European Heart Journal, Balasubramanian states that drones were able to provide time-saving benefits in emergency situations, with a successful delivery rate of 92%. In another finding, Balasubramanian mentions an autonomous drone helped save the life of a man who experienced an OHCA by delivering an AED in just over three minutes. With a promising future drones have, Balasubramanian explains that large retailers such as Amazon have already begun testing and using drone technology for retail needs, which will lower the costs of drone technology and make it more accessible for healthcare organizations. With continued development, drones will have the potential to provide significant value in timely healthcare delivery and measurable healthcare outcomes.

However, even though there’s great potential in healthcare drones, especially in need of hard-to-access patients, they are still relatively new and the groundwork of the technology still lacks in many aspects such as its security system, delivery under unfavourable weather, and the malfunctions of drones. These groundworks must be accomplished first in order to further advance the drone's usage. 

One of the key areas to be considered is the security system of the drone. Hijacking is pretty common in electronics technology and drones are not an exception as well. The risk of hijacking increases as drones rely more on wireless communication and have fewer physical safeguards in place. This could lead to severe consequences, including theft, loss of data, or malicious use of drones for harmful purposes such as surveillance or the delivery of dangerous payloads. As such, measures must be developed and implemented to increase the security of drone communication and operation to prevent hijacking.

The malfunctioning of the drone needs to be addressed as well. It can be potentially hazardous if not well function. 

The suboptimal weather conditions like rain snow fog and wind can reduce the chances of success in delivery of drones. Even with drones are made weatherproof , the cost of making this specific drones over the pro it margin would not be ideal. Hence making a loss instead.

The benefit of having drones is that it essentially aid in reduces the time for healthcare delivery. 

In conclusion, the drones can bring us immeasurable positive outcomes in the future, only with sufficient research and developments to necessary improve security measures and safety functions equipped. Only then drones would be capable of delivering healthcare related services, or in other supply chain industry effectively and efficiently. 

https://www.citationmachine.net/apa/cite-a-newspaper/custom

Reference

- Sai Balasubramanian (2022, Jan 9). Drones May Become 'The Next Big Thing' In Healthcare Delivery.

- AB, E. (2022, January 5). For the first time in medical history, an autonomous drone helps save the life of a cardiac arrest patient.