Acceptability and perceived utility of drone technology among emergency medical service responders and incident commanders for mass casualty incident management

Am J Disaster Med. 2017 Fall;12(4):261-265. doi: 10.5055/ajdm.2017.0279.

Abstract

Objective: This study seeks to understand the acceptability and perceived utility of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology to Mass Casualty Incidents (MCI) scene management.

Design: Qualitative questionnaires regarding the ease of operation, perceived usefulness, and training time to operate UAVs were administered to Emergency Medical Technicians (n = 15).

Setting: A Single Urban New England Academic Tertiary Care Medical Center.

Participants: Front-line emergency medical service (EMS) providers and senior EMS personnel in Incident Commander roles.

Conclusions: Data from this pilot study indicate that EMS responders are accepting to deploying and operating UAV technology in a disaster scenario. Additionally, they perceived UAV technology as easy to adopt yet impactful in improving MCI scene management.

MeSH terms

  • Aircraft*
  • Disaster Planning / organization & administration*
  • Disaster Planning / statistics & numerical data
  • Emergency Medical Services / organization & administration*
  • Emergency Responders / education*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Mass Casualty Incidents / prevention & control*
  • New England
  • Pilot Projects
  • Qualitative Research