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Merei A, Mcheick H, Ghaddar A. Survey on Path Planning for UAVs in Healthcare Missions. J Med Syst 2023; 47:79. [PMID: 37498478 DOI: 10.1007/s10916-023-01972-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/10/2023] [Accepted: 07/02/2023] [Indexed: 07/28/2023]
Abstract
This article presents a comprehensive review of the state-of-the-art applications and methodologies related to the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the healthcare sector, with a particular focus on path planning. UAVs have gained remarkable attention in healthcare during the outbreak of COVID-19, and this study explores their potential as a viable option for medical transportation. The survey categorizes existing studies by mission type, challenges addressed, and performance metrics to provide a clearer picture of the path planning problems and potential directions for future research. It highlights the importance of addressing the path planning problem and the challenges that UAVs may face during their missions, including the UAV delivery range limitation, and discusses recent solutions in this field. The study concludes by encouraging researchers to conduct their studies in a realistic environment to reveal UAVs' real potential, usability, and feasibility in the healthcare domain.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ahmad Merei
- Department of Computer Science and Mathematics, University of Quebec at Chicoutimi, 555 University Boulevard, Chicoutimi, G7H 2B1, Quebec, Canada.
| | - Hamid Mcheick
- Department of Computer Science and Mathematics, University of Quebec at Chicoutimi, 555 University Boulevard, Chicoutimi, G7H 2B1, Quebec, Canada
| | - Alia Ghaddar
- Department of Computer Science, International University of Beirut, Mouseitbeh, Mazraa, PO Box: 146404, Beirut, Lebanon
- Department of Computer Science, Lebanese International University, Khiyarah Bekaa, PO Box: 146404, Alkhiyarah, Lebanon
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Mohsan SAH, Zahra QUA, Khan MA, Alsharif MH, Elhaty IA, Jahid A. Role of Drone Technology Helping in Alleviating the COVID-19 Pandemic. MICROMACHINES 2022; 13:1593. [PMID: 36295946 PMCID: PMC9612140 DOI: 10.3390/mi13101593] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/21/2022] [Revised: 09/18/2022] [Accepted: 09/22/2022] [Indexed: 06/16/2023]
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by a new coronavirus, has affected economic and social standards as governments and healthcare regulatory agencies throughout the world expressed worry and explored harsh preventative measures to counteract the disease's spread and intensity. Several academics and experts are primarily concerned with halting the continuous spread of the unique virus. Social separation, the closing of borders, the avoidance of big gatherings, contactless transit, and quarantine are important methods. Multiple nations employ autonomous, digital, wireless, and other promising technologies to tackle this coronary pneumonia. This research examines a number of potential technologies, including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, deep learning (DL), the Internet of Things (IoT), edge computing, and virtual reality (VR), in an effort to mitigate the danger of COVID-19. Due to their ability to transport food and medical supplies to a specific location, UAVs are currently being utilized as an innovative method to combat this illness. This research intends to examine the possibilities of UAVs in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic from several angles. UAVs offer intriguing options for delivering medical supplies, spraying disinfectants, broadcasting communications, conducting surveillance, inspecting, and screening patients for infection. This article examines the use of drones in healthcare as well as the advantages and disadvantages of strict adoption. Finally, challenges, opportunities, and future work are discussed to assist in adopting drone technology to tackle COVID-19-like diseases.
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Affiliation(s)
- Syed Agha Hassnain Mohsan
- Optical Communications Laboratory, Ocean College, Zhejiang University, Zheda Road 1, Zhoushan 316021, China
| | - Qurat ul Ain Zahra
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Biomedical Imaging Centre, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230009, China
| | - Muhammad Asghar Khan
- Department of Electrical Engineering, Hamdard Institute of Engineering & Technology, Islamabad 44000, Pakistan
| | - Mohammed H. Alsharif
- Department of Electrical Engineering, College of Electronics and Information Engineering, Sejong University, Seoul 05006, Korea
| | - Ismail A. Elhaty
- Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, Faculty of Health Sciences, Istanbul Gelisim University, Istanbul P.O. Box 34310, Turkey
| | - Abu Jahid
- School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Ottawa, 25 Templeton St., Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5, Canada
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Robakowska M, Ślęzak D, Żuratyński P, Tyrańska-Fobke A, Robakowski P, Prędkiewicz P, Zorena K. Possibilities of Using UAVs in Pre-Hospital Security for Medical Emergencies. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH AND PUBLIC HEALTH 2022; 19:10754. [PMID: 36078469 PMCID: PMC9518096 DOI: 10.3390/ijerph191710754] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/01/2022] [Revised: 08/25/2022] [Accepted: 08/27/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
The term unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was post-applied in the 1980s to describe remotely piloted multi-purpose, unmanned, autonomous aircraft. The terms unmanned aircraft systems with data terminal connectivity (UAS) and remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPV, RPAS-military systems) are also used. This review aims to analyze the feasibility of using UAVs to support emergency medical systems in the supply and urgent care ranges. The implementation of drones in the medical security system requires proper planning of service cooperation, division of the area into sectors, assessment of potential risks and opportunities, and legal framework for the application. A systematic literature search was conducted to assess the applicability based on published scientific papers on possible medical drone applications in the field of urgent mode. The widespread applications of UAVs in healthcare are concerned with logistics, scope, and transportability, with framework legal constraints to effectively exploit opportunities for improving population health, particularly for costly critical situations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marlena Robakowska
- Department of Public Health & Social Medicine, Medical University of Gdańsk, 80-210 Gdansk, Poland
| | - Daniel Ślęzak
- Division of Medical Rescue, Faculty of Health Sciences with the Institute of Maritime and Tropical Medicine, Medical University of Gdańsk, 80-210 Gdansk, Poland
| | - Przemysław Żuratyński
- Division of Medical Rescue, Faculty of Health Sciences with the Institute of Maritime and Tropical Medicine, Medical University of Gdańsk, 80-210 Gdansk, Poland
- Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care, Oncology Center—Memorial Hospital in Bydgoszcz, 85-796 Bydgoszcz, Poland
| | - Anna Tyrańska-Fobke
- Department of Public Health & Social Medicine, Medical University of Gdańsk, 80-210 Gdansk, Poland
| | - Piotr Robakowski
- Division of Medical Rescue, Faculty of Health Sciences with the Institute of Maritime and Tropical Medicine, Medical University of Gdańsk, 80-210 Gdansk, Poland
| | - Paweł Prędkiewicz
- Department of Finance, Faculty of Economics and Finance, Wrocław University of Economics, 53-345 Wroclaw, Poland
| | - Katarzyna Zorena
- Department of Immunobiology and Environmental Microbiology, Medical University of Gdansk, 80-211 Gdansk, Poland
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Comtet HE, Keitsch M, Johannessen KA. Realities of Using Drones to Transport Laboratory Samples: Insights from Attended Routes in a Mixed-Methods Study. J Multidiscip Healthc 2022; 15:1871-1885. [PMID: 36068877 PMCID: PMC9441146 DOI: 10.2147/jmdh.s371957] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/07/2022] [Accepted: 08/17/2022] [Indexed: 11/23/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Hans E Comtet
- The Intervention Centre, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, 0424, Norway
- Department of Design, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, 7491, Norway
- Correspondence: Hans E Comtet, The Intervention Centre, Oslo University Hospital, Postboks 4950, Oslo, 0424, Norway, Email
| | - Martina Keitsch
- Department of Design, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, 7491, Norway
| | - Karl-Arne Johannessen
- The Intervention Centre, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, 0424, Norway
- Department of Health Management and Health Economics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo, 0318, Norway
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Drone Usage for Medicine and Vaccine Delivery during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Attitude of Health Care Workers in Rural Medical Centres. DRONES 2022. [DOI: 10.3390/drones6050109] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/27/2023]
Abstract
Rural areas are often difficult to access reliably with medicine and vaccines. This study aimed to examine rural health care workers’ attitude towards drone delivery for medicine and vaccines and the factors that influenced it. Health care workers from four rural health care facilities were sampled. Participants self-reported their demographic information, attitude towards medicine and vaccine delivery using drones, perception of benefits and risks of using drones, and perceived leadership innovativeness through an online or a pen-and-paper questionnaire. A total of 272 health care workers (mean age = 36.19, SD = 8.10) from all of the sites participated in this study. More than half of the study participants agreed or strongly agreed that using a drone to deliver medicine and vaccines is a good idea (54.2%, 95% CI [47.5, 60.8]), a wise idea (54.6%, 95% CI [47.9, 61.2]), and is desirable (52.5%, 95% CI [45.7, 59.0]). Males (β = 0.223), workers from the Obstetrics and Gynaecology department (β = 0.135), a lower perceived delivery risk (β = −0.237), and higher leadership innovativeness (β = 0.336) predicted positive attitudes towards drone usage. Assistant medical officers (β = −0.172) had a negative attitude. There is a need to further understand the roles of occupation and leadership innovativeness in predicting health care workers’ attitude towards drone usage, as these differences could be embedded within their roles in the health care system.
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Abstract
The integration of drones into health care as a supplement to existing logistics methods may generate a need for cooperation and involvement across multiple resource areas. It is currently not well understood whether such integrations would merely represent a technical implementation or if they would cause more significant changes to laboratory services. By choosing socio-technical theory as the theoretical lens, this paper intends to harvest knowledge from the literature on various organizational concepts and examine possible synergies between such theories to determine optimal strategies for introducing the use of drones in a health care context. Our particular interest is to examine whether the insights generated from the multi-level perspective (MLP) may have the potential to create dynamic spin-offs related to the organizational transitions associated with the implementation of drones in health services. We built our study on a scoping literature review of topics associated with the MLP and socio-technical studies from differing arenas, supplemented with studies harvested on a broader basis. The scoping review is based on 25 articles that were selected for analysis. As a way of organizing the literature, the niche, regime, and landscape levels of the MLP are translated to the corresponding health care-related terms, i.e., clinic, institution, and health care system. Furthermore, subcategories emerged inductively during the process of analysis. The MLP provides essential knowledge regarding the context for innovation and how the interaction between the different levels can accelerate the diffusion of innovations. Several authors have put both ethical topics and public acceptance into a socio-technological perspective. Although a socio-technical approach is not needed to operate drones, it may help in the long run to invest in a culture that is open to innovation and change.
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Reliability Evaluation of the Factors That Influenced COVID-19 Patients’ Condition. APPLIED SCIENCES-BASEL 2021. [DOI: 10.3390/app11062589] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/19/2022]
Abstract
Health and safety is a problem that is intensively discussed nowadays. The failures in healthcare are called medical errors: if the patient’s condition worsens or he/she contracts an illness, then the actions that led to this are interpreted as medical errors. Medical errors can be the result of new procedures, extremes of age, complex or urgent care, improper documentation, illegible hand-writing, or patient actions. One of the ways to reduce medical error is an evaluation of its possibility, and then using the result of this evaluation to improve the medical organization units and processes in patient diagnosis, treatment, and care. This evaluation is possible based on methods of reliability engineering. The reliability engineering methods allow evaluating of different systems’ reliability and the influence of external and internal factors on system reliability. These methods’ application needs the system to be investigated or objective interpretation in terms of reliability engineering. Therefore, such a system in healthcare, for the diagnosis of disease, a patient’s treatment, the influence of different factors on a patient’s condition, and others, should be presented according to the rules and demands of reliability engineering. The first step is development of the mathematical representation of the investigated system or object according to the demands of the reliability analysis. One of the often-used mathematical representations in the reliability analysis of a system is the structure function. However, this mathematical representation needs completely specified initial data. The initial data from the healthcare domain for medical error analysis is uncertain and incompletely specified. Therefore, the development of this mathematical representation needs special methods. In this paper, a new method for the mathematical representation of system development based on uncertain and incompletely specified data is proposed. The system evaluation based on the structure function allows computing of many reliability indices and measures used in reliability engineering. The approbation of this method is considered based on an example of COVID-19 patients.
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