Drone company Zipline delivers medical supplies and clinical laboratory specimens on four continents and is used in the US by several major healthcare networks and retail organizations
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly referred to as drones, continue to demonstrate their value in the medical industry. In February, WellSpan Health announced it will soon begin using drones to deliver prescriptions to patients and to transport medical supplies and clinical laboratory specimens between its facilities located in Pennsylvania.
WellSpan Health, one of the leading healthcare systems in Southern Pennsylvania and Northern Maryland, is partnering with Zipline, a supplier of drone logistic services, in the endeavor.
“We’re making our [healthcare] system lower cost, faster, and more sustainable by bringing this exceptional technology to South Central Pennsylvania,” said Roxanna Gapstur, PhD, RN, President and CEO, WellSpan Health, in a news release. “We know the easier it is to access care the healthier people can be. With Zipline, we’re connecting healthcare straight to your front door.”
Zipline’s Platform 2 (P2 Zip) drone will be used for the venture. The drone is designed to fly in almost all weather conditions. If true, this would be a boon to the drone delivery service industry.
Previous attempts to implement drone delivery services have been hampered by a typical drone’s low performance in bad weather such as heavy rain and high winds. This seems to be what has held back wide adoption of drone delivery in the US.
“WellSpan continues to reimagine what healthcare can look like for our patients. With Zipline, we’re creating a future for our patients, where getting a prescription filled is as simple as pressing a button,” said Roxanna Gapstur, PhD, RN (above), President and CEO, WellSpan Health, in a news release. WellSpan Health’s drone delivery customers will be able to receive text notifications tracking the progress of their medical supplies and clinical laboratory specimens on their smartphones. (Photo copyright: WellSpan Health.)
Delivery of Medical Supplies Direct to Patients’ Front Door
ABC27 reported that “WellSpan will be the first health service in the state of Pennsylvania that will introduce this type of technology and delivery system.”
According to the drone company’s website, Zipline:
Serves more than 4,000 health centers worldwide and more than 45 million people.
Has completed more than one million deliveries.
Plans to operate more flights annually than almost all the major US airlines by next year.
Delivers 75% of Rwanda’s blood supply outside Kigali, the country’s capital city.
Additionally, Zipline’s all-electric, zero-emission drones reduce carbon emissions by an average of 97% when compared to gas-driven vehicles.
Each P2 Zip drone features Zipline’s autonomous airspace Detect and Avoid (DAA) deconfliction technology and contains fully redundant flight systems.
“This acoustic system is composed of a series of small, lightweight acoustic microphones and onboard processors used to navigate airspace and grant 360-degree awareness with a range of up to 2,000 meters,” DRONELIFE reported. “This innovative onboard system enables the aircraft to autonomously detect and maneuver around other aircraft and obstacles in real-time, making large scale autonomous commercial operations more feasible.”
According to a fact sheet, the P2 Zip drone can carry loads up to eight pounds and has a cruising speed of 70 miles/hour. It’s service range is either a 10-mile radius or a one-way trip of 24 miles. It only requires two feet of open space to execute a delivery and can hover at more than 300 feet above the ground while delivering a package.
“Zipline has been improving access to healthcare for eight years. Together with WellSpan Health we will bring prescriptions and medical products right to patients’ doorsteps with fast, sustainable, and convenient delivery,” stated Keller Rinaudo Cliffton, co-founder and CEO of Zipline, in the news release.
Other Healthcare Drone Delivery Services
Dark Daily has published many ebriefs about drones being used for medical supply and clinical laboratory specimen deliveries.
As drone delivery technology continues to improve, UAVs are more likely to be used in healthcare situations. If the issue of bad weather has been resolved, it’s reasonable to assume that within a short period of time clinical laboratories may begin receiving many more samples to test via drones.
Clinical laboratories continue to test sample delivery by drone as a viable alternative to ground transport
In Switzerland, another clinical laboratory drone delivery service recently launched and it has several unique capabilities. This new pilot project to test the delivery of medical laboratory samples by UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle, aka drone) is being conducted by the Dr. Risch laboratory group and start-up drone company Jedsy.
What makes the Risch/Jedsy drone delivery service unique when compared to other drone delivery services is their drone’s capability to deliver directly to windows, regardless of where that window is. This, according to a Jedsy news release, “makes the transport of samples faster and more environmentally friendly.”
Dr. Risch group has 14 clinical laboratories and eight sample collection locations throughout Switzerland. The Swiss Federal Office of Civil Aviation (FOCA) approved Dr. Risch’s first flight between its lab in Vaduz, the capital of Liechtenstein, to its lab in Buchs St. Gallen, sUAS News reported. Risch began transporting lab samples between those locations on an experimental basis in December of 2022.
The Jedsy glider, as the drone is called, has a distinctive vertical takeoff, hover, and landing capability. Once it achieves a safe altitude, it transitions to forward flight and can travel at speeds up to 150 kilometers per hour or about 93 miles per hour.
All systems on the Jedsy drone are redundant and developed to be fail-safe. A human drone operator follows the flight visually via a livestream connection. Once the drone approaches a building for landing, with the exception of the docking station the entire surrounding area is blurred to ensure the privacy of nearby individuals.
The Jedsy Glider (above) is quieter than other multicopters, according to Jedsy, and is able to dock outside a window or balcony. This enables the convenient loading and unloading of clinical laboratory specimens in any type of weather. The docking station also serves as a charger for the drone’s battery to ensure the craft is available for use at any time. Similar medical laboratory sample drone delivery services have been tested in Switzerland but none with Dr. Risch Labs’ unique window delivery option. (Photo copyright: Jedsy.)
Why Transport Clinical Laboratory Samples by Drone?
“The last two years during the COVID-19 pandemic have shown convincingly how important this service is for the healthcare sector,” explained the medical laboratory group’s founder and CEO, Martin Risch, MD, in the Jedsy press release.
Risch envisions a need for drones in certain medical situations. Dr. Risch currently employs about 50 courier drivers who transport by ground medical samples to regional medical laboratories throughout Switzerland every day.
“If, however, the courier vehicles are stuck in traffic or if they are driving during rush hour, the planned daily routine regarding the analysis and the medical diagnosis is delayed. We hope that this will allow us to offer an even better service, which will ultimately benefit the patients,” Risch stated.
Jedsy has already utilized its glider drone successfully in Africa to deliver laboratory specimens and medicines to remote locations and looks forward to its continued benefits.
“With the new drone, we have already gained important flying experience in Malawi, where over 5,000 flights have been performed as part of the UNICEF drone corridor,” said aerospace engineer Herbert Weirather, founder and CEO of Jedsy, in the press release. “Health centers have already been supplied with critical medicines by Jedsy and the service is being expanded continuously,” he added.
Use of Drones to Deliver Clinical Laboratory Samples Growing Worldwide
Utilizing drones to deliver medical supplies and laboratory specimens is not a new concept and has been tested several times in the past. Dark Daily has previously reported on some of the projects that have been attempted.
The use of drones to deliver clinical laboratory specimens is a rising trend that could be extremely beneficial for healthcare systems, medical professionals, and patients. A number of clinical laboratories in the US and around the world have initiated drone pilot programs, however, there has been little follow-up press coverage about either the success of these efforts or whether they continue to operate.
Nevertheless, faster delivery of laboratory specimens can lead to more timely diagnoses which can potentially lead to better patient outcomes. In the future, it’s likely more clinical laboratories will receive specimens via drones.
Drone program will enable delivery of medical laboratory samples during the day, rather than just at night, allowing daytime sample processing that will increase efficiency and shorten time to results
Healthcare network clinical laboratories continue to explore the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones, to safely deliver medical supplies and clinical laboratory specimens between locations. Dark Daily has covered several similar pioneering drone programs taking place around the world in recent years.
The latest medical laboratory company to launch a drone delivery program is Interpath Laboratory, an independent full-service medical laboratory in the Pacific Northwest.
In partnership with Arizona-based Spright—the drone division of Air Methods, a patient transport company with 300 bases in 48 states—Interpath recently announced the launch of its drone delivery pilot program for delivering lab testing specimens from Yellowhawk Tribal Health Center to Interpath’s medical laboratory in Pendleton, Oregon.
The two organizations hope the initiative will expedite the turnaround time needed for test results, thus allowing for timelier diagnoses and improving patient care and outcomes.
“Many communities located in remote or rural areas lack timely and convenient access to essential medical supplies and service,” said Joe Resnik (above), president of Spright in a press release. “We look forward to this proof-of-concept, showcasing drone delivery’s ability to solve many of healthcare’s existing access and efficiency challenges, while also improving patient care and experience.” (Photo copyright: KVS Technologies.)
Replacing Automobile-based Medical Laboratory Specimen Delivery
“If this pilot program is successful and we are able to utilize this service, our patients have the opportunity to benefit from more rapid test results and access follow-up medical procedures and services,” stated Aaron Hines, CEO of Yellowhawk Tribal Health Center in a press release. “This project could help us further our mission of providing high-quality, primary healthcare for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR).”
Currently, patient samples taken throughout the day at various Yellowhawk facilities are picked up and delivered to Interpath’s clinical laboratory in the evening via gasoline-powered vehicles. A successful drone service would allow lab test specimens to be repeatedly picked up and delivered to the lab for analysis throughout the day.
“Medical laboratory services in rural areas frequently must invest intensive time and resources into sample pick-up,” said Tom Kennedy, president of Interpath Laboratory, in the press release. “We anticipate Spright’s drone delivery service will alleviate many of the drawbacks and costs associated with automobile-based delivery. This initiative represents an example of our embrace of innovative solutions that provide more efficient and effective services to our clients.”
In February, Spright held test flights that transported clinical laboratory specimens from Yellowhawk Tribal Health Center to Interpath’s main medical laboratory in Pendleton, Ore. The 15-mile flight used a Wingcopter 198 drone (above) which employs beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) technology. Manufactured in Germany, the Wingcopter 198 has a wingspan of five feet ten inches and can carry up to 13 pounds. It has a range of 46 to 68 miles, and a maximum speed of approximately 62 to 90 miles per hour, depending on the weight of its load. (Photo copyright: sUAS News.)
Other Clinical Laboratory Drone Deliver Programs Worldwide
Innovative approaches, such as the utilization of drones to make clinical laboratory specimen deliveries, can help circumvent many of the challenges in delivering healthcare to rural areas. But UAV delivery networks work equally well for faster specimen transferals in urban environments as well, leading to timelier diagnoses of diseases and ultimately to better patient outcomes.
Goal of university’s yearlong CHURP test was to validate the use of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), commonly known as drones, in the delivery of medical supplies across SUNY’s campus
Just as hospital systems worldwide are exploring the feasibility of using drone technology to deliver clinical laboratory specimens and medical supplies between healthcare settings and medical laboratories, SUNY Upstate Medical University also has joined the growing list of healthcare providers that have added unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, to their specimen/supplies delivery services.
Traditional delivery of similar items normally takes about seven minutes. The drone delivered the same test kit in just two minutes, according to Government Technology(GT).
Then, “To prove that drone deliveries can be scaled up, the team conducted more medical deliveries in three locations throughout Syracuse two weeks ago, sending supplies from the hospital to a medical laboratory, from the hospital to a surgery center, and from a pharmacy to a second hospital,” GT reported.
Tony Basile, Chief Operations Officer at NUAIR, told GT the flight was a “proof of concept demonstration to show that medical deliveries can be made by drone when speed is essential, such as when tissue samples taken from a surgery patient must be delivered rapidly to a laboratory in a different building.”
Special FAA Waiver Allows Drone Flights Over Certain People
The FAA’s 107.39 waiver allows a drone operator to fly over people who are not participating in the operation and over those who are not covered under a structure or within a stationary vehicle. The January flight marked the first time the FAA’s 107.39 waiver was used for such a drone operation, a DroneUp press release notes.
The SUNY and the NUAIR alliance began formulating the concept of using drones to make medical deliveries more than a year and ago. At that time, there were concerns that a nearby highway project would disrupt normal clinical laboratory specimen delivery operations. The highway separates the hospital from a surgery center and finding a way to expedite deliveries despite slow traffic was essential, GT reported.
“They’re not going to want to wait 20 minutes for a tissue sample to get to the lab because the highway is coming down,” Basile told GT.
Challenges Encountered with Drone Delivery of Clinical Specimens and Supplies
In late spring, the team conducted additional deliveries to further prove the efficacy of using drones to transport medical supplies. They successfully transported supplies via UAV from the SUNY hospital to a clinical laboratory, from the hospital to a separate surgery center, and from a pharmacy to another hospital in the area.
“We conducted 52 successful deliveries throughout the week and were able to streamline the process, getting to about five deliveries an hour,” Basile wrote in a NUAIR article he penned, titled, “Making Drone Deliveries Scalable and Economically Viable.”
The drone used during the NUAIR test flights was equipped with a parachute in case of a mechanical failure and was only flown late at night. Basile believes the FAA will likely require medical delivery drones to have six to eight motors (shown above) as a security measure in case one or two motors fail. A common type of drone, known as a quadcopter, has only four motors and it is unable to fly if even one motor fails. (Photo copyright: NUAIR.)
Although the unmanned delivery flights were successful, SUNY experienced challenges with using drones to make medical deliveries. Those challenges included:
Economics: The NUAIR test flights required five people to conduct the flights, which is more costly than paying one driver to deliver the supplies.
FAA restrictions: The FAA currently does not allow biohazardous materials or controlled substances to be transported by drones due to the risk of public exposure if a crash occurs.
Device approval: The FAA is still in the process of evaluating which drone models will be permitted to carry medical supplies.
Weather: Drones cannot fly in inclement weather conditions.
“[Drones] are susceptible to strong winds and icing,” Basile told GT.
However, Basile believes that with more research and test flights the challenges will be resolved, and that drones will be used for medical deliveries in the future.
“I think they’re certainly going to be used,” he told GT. “Whether it’s soon depends on what you mean by soon.”
Drones Deliver Clinical Laboratory Specimens and Medical Supplies Worldwide
Other countries are increasingly using drones to deliver COVID-19 test kits and samples to and from remote areas.
In 2018, Dark Daily reported on automated logistics company Zipline’s use of fixed-wing drones called “Zips” to provide on-demand access to vital blood supplies in Rwanda and Tanzania. The Silicon Valley company transported more than 5,500 units of blood in 2017 to 12 regional hospitals from a base in the east of Rwanda, reported The Guardian. Zipline began operating in the African nation in 2016 and quickly cut blood delivery time from four hours to an average of about 30 minutes.
And in “Swiss Post Medical Drone Carrying Clinical Laboratory Specimens Crashes in Switzerland,” we reported that the medical drone revolution experienced a setback when drone-pioneer Swiss Post (Switzerland’s postal service) saw one of its American-made Matternet drones crash into Lake Zurich, Switzerland. According to a Swiss Post news release, the drone went down carrying a “non-vital” blood sample (one that had been previously analyzed). The flight was part of a recently launched pilot program transporting blood samples between Zurich’s central laboratory and the Hirslanden Klinik Im Park, a private clinic on the opposite side of Lake Zurich.
Although not all drone delivery flights end in success, these projects clearly demonstrate how safe and reliable drone delivery of medical supplies and clinical laboratory specimens could one day be beneficial to medical communities.
Such drone deliveries will likely help medical professionals expedite diagnoses and treatment options for patients, especially in remote areas where land transportation would be much less timely.
Service uses ‘hub-and-spoke’ routing model to provide rapid delivery of time-and-temperature-sensitive clinical laboratory specimens and supplies
Drone delivery service in healthcare is beginning to take flight both here and abroad, with California-based Matternet launching medical drone delivery networks in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and Berlin, Germany.
The successful use of unmanned aircraft to deliver patient specimens has major implications for clinical laboratories. When conditions allow them to fly, drones can significantly shorten delivery times of routine patient specimens such as blood and urine.
The drones will fly two routes and carry scheduled deliveries of specialty infusion medicines and personal protective equipment (PPE). Because infusion medicines are patient-specific, high cost, and have a short shelf life, delivery by drone within 10 minutes is an ideal solution, Matternet said in the news release. Individually compounded medicines also will be delivered on-demand for dispensing to patients who need real-time access to treatments.
“This partnership with UPSFF aligns strategically with our mission to improve the health of those in the communities that we serve as well as our Virtual Health sector in iQ Healthtech Labs,” said Jane Shen, PharmD (above), Chief Strategy Officer at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and Head of Sector Development for Innovation Quarter, a subsidiary of iQ Healthtech Labs, in the IQ Healthtech Labs news release. “We seek to leverage technology advances to make access to healthcare easier and more effective. Collaborating in innovative ways with a key logistics partner like UPS allows Wake Forest Baptist to deliver care in better and more efficient ways to patients and their families.” (Photo copyright: Triad Business Journal.)
Matternet has been operating in the US since August 2018. In, “WakeMed Uses Drone to Deliver Patient Specimens,” Dark Daily’s sister publication, The Dark Report, reported how—following a two-year trial period using a quadcopter to deliver patients’ samples from a physicians’ office satellite lab/draw station to the WakeMed Medical Center’s central lab—the North Carolina healthcare system, in partnership with UPSFF, completed the first successful revenue-generating commercial transport of lab supplies by drone in the US at WakeMed’s flagship hospital and campus in Raleigh, N.C.
Bala Ganesh, a Vice President of Engineering at UPS, said UPSFF, which was launched in July 2019, is focused on healthcare deliveries. To make drone deliveries commercially viable, both “criticality” and an industry’s “willingness to pay” are important, he said. “We never looked at delivering pizza,” he told Forbes. UPSFF is the first company to receive the FAA’s Part 135 certification (package delivery by drone).
The video above demonstrates Matternet’s “Easy-to-use interface for sending and receiving packages 24/7/365.” The Matternet Station (above) is “integrated with the Matternet Cloud [Matternet’s proprietary software platform for operating Matternet networks] and the M2 Drone for payload and battery exchange, and autonomous take-off and landing. The station “can store up to seven payloads and batteries and hold one Matternet M2 Drone in its hangar.” Hospital-based clinical laboratory managers will appreciate the ease at which the station can be accessed by lab personnel. Click here to watch the full video. (Video and caption copyright: Matternet.)
BVLOS Drone Delivery of Clinical Laboratory Specimens in Europe
Last year, Matternet launched the first beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS)-operated medical drone network in Europe. Its unmanned aircraft will be flown without the requirement that a pilot always maintain a visual line of sight on the aircraft.
Matternet launched its BVLOS operations at Labor Berlin, Europe’s largest hospital laboratory, which includes facilities in 13 hospitals across Berlin.
“We continue to expand drone delivery operations around the world with a focus on urban environments,” said Andreas Raptopoulos, Matternet Founder and CEO, in a press release. “Hospitals and laboratories in densely populated cities like Berlin need fast and predictable transportation methods that avoid urban congestion. We are thrilled to partner with Labor Berlin and look forward to streamlining their diagnostics work to the benefit of Berlin’s hospitals and residents.”
According to the press release, Matternet’s drone delivery network will transport samples from hospitals to Labor Berlin facilities up to 70% faster than ground courier services, as well as reducing vehicular traffic and emissions in Berlin’s urban core. Currently, more than 15,000 samples are transported daily across Labor Berlin’s healthcare system.
Will Drone Delivery of Clinical Laboratory Specimens Become the New Normal?
“I think that this is the wave of the future,” Atrium Health Senior Vice President Conrad Emmerich, who previously served as Senior Vice President, Business Services, at Wake Forest Baptist Health, told Fox 8 News.
It’s certainly beginning to look as if drone delivery as a viable alternative to traditional transport methods is taking off (pun intended). Since 2017, Dark Daily has published 10 ebriefings on drone delivery systems for healthcare being trailed worldwide.
Since the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, regular transporting of clinical laboratory specimens and supplies by drone could reduce transit times between hospitals and clinical laboratories and lower laboratory specimen transportation costs.
Hospital administrators and medical laboratory executives may want to keep tabs on the expansion of such services into their regions. There may be opportunities to improve clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction.
