You saw it on the news last week: A drone launched by Australian lifeguards dropped a lifesaving raft with pinpoint precision to two ocean swimmers in distress well before lifeguards could reach them. Now you can see it at the upcoming EMS Today Conference in Charlotte Feb. 20-23.
The Drones & Artificial Intelligence (AI) as Tools for Public Safety is a full-day workshop that will present this type of lifesaving drone and more.
You’ll hear from industry-leading drone expert Douglas Spotted Eagle; from consulting, education and implementation group, Sundance Media Group (SMG); and Andreas Claesson, PhD, RN, EMT-P, an award-winning drone researcher and implementation specialist from Stockholm, Sweden.
The workshop will provide you with the information you need to explore and move into the world of drones and UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) for public safety purposes.
This session will also introduce you to the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), which can help make important choices and enable personnel to get to the appropriate response faster and be more accurate in their diagnosis, since the AI can find causality where humans cannot; seamlessly validating information in the background as every call develops.
Session Overview
The workshop will begin with a solid overview of current drone/UAV regulations and requirements in the United States, including:
- Regulatory requirements (107 certification, COA’s & waivers);
- Best practices of implementing UAV as a tool (aircraft, accessories, intent of UAV as a tool, etc.); and
- Identifying and mitigating risk in UAV operations.
The workshop will then move into applications of this technology that are already underway, such as:
- Delivery of AEDs and other medical supplies to hard-to-serve and remote areas;
- Use of drones (tethered and free-flying) for overhead command/control/surveillance/reconnaissance/lighting;
- Use of thermal imagery cameras to find survivors at disaster scenes and MCIs, particular at nighttime or remote incidents;
- Delivery of personal flotation devices to swimmers in distress before the arrival of a rescue swimmer; and
- Geo-locate (via altimeter and geographic mean) firefighters and other responders trapped in high-rise fires.
Futuristic applications, such as the resupply of EMS units, or the delivery of supplies to firefighters and law enforcement officers under adverse conditions, will also be discussed.
UAVs in Sweden & Beyond
Andreas Claesson, PhD, RN, EMT-P, will present his award-winning work in the research and development of UAV use to deliver drones in Sweden to facilitate early defibrillation in out-of-hospital-cardiac-arrest (OHCA). His epic work has evaluated a system that uses geographical information system (GIS) models.
Claesson’s team was able to identify rural parts of Stockholm with a prolonged response time to OHCA (>20 minutes) and a survival rate of approximately 0%. GIS models show a potential for drone-delivered AEDs with a time savings of 19 minutes. Watch this inspiring clip to see the Stockholm drone program.
Dr. Claesson will also discuss the use of drones in cardiac arrest due to drowning, which has also been tested in simulated settings. A UAV 60 meters in the air off a major beach in sweden provided the live video feed and helped locate victims quickly.
He will discuss implementation of the first drones used for search and rescue purposes were implemented in Scandinavia in June of 2017, and demonstrate the situational awreness and early delivery of flotation devices quickly aided swimmers in distress.
SMG will then present several public safety UAV applications, such as:
- Dropping floatation devices;
- Dropping survival gear (e.g., to hikers);
- Use of tethered drones; and
- Finding alzheimer patients who wear special wristbands.
Artificial Intelligence
A special lecture on the use of AI will also be presented by Andreas Cleve, CEO of Corti.ai, a software company based in Copenhagen, Denmark and San Francisco, Calif.
Corti has been working with Copenhagen EMS and other clients to bring AI and Speech Recognition (ASR) to EMS dispatch centers, operations and field diagnosis.
He’ll discuss how AI can help people and public institutions to better handle imperative problems by turning massive amounts of stored/absorbed data into actionable insights that advance the art of decision-making.
Corti’s technology listens in when the dispatch center receives a call, and helps the agent find the right response in a matter of seconds, by analyzing critical information presented to dispatchers, along with paramedic findings, patient history and historical trends.
Hands On Demonstrations
Douglas Spotted Eagle and Andreas Claesson will introduce attendees to state-of-the-art UAVs that are currently available, and demonstrate how easily and effectively they can be used by public safety personnel.