Tech & Innovation in Healthcare

Two companies, MissionGO and Zipline, are using drones to deliver healthcare supplies in the United States and other countries.

MissionGO’s aircraft weighs less than 55 pounds and is an all-electric helicopter that can transport cargo weighing up to 15 pounds. The UAS currently has a range of approximately 30 miles or one hour of travel on a single battery charge. “We see our aircraft being used in a last-mile delivery scenario — deliveries direct to the user or final recipient,” says Ryan Henderson, director of cargo operations for MissionGO in Baltimore, Maryland.

Zipline uses fixed-wing aircraft that are launched into the sky via a small catapult and can carry small cargo weighing up to four pounds. “Our drones can deliver packages that include everything from medication to healthcare supplies to retail goods. We’re even capable of safely transporting cold chain products, like vaccines or specialty medications,” says Conor French, general counsel for Zipline.

With a roundtrip range of 100 miles, one Zipline distribution center has the capability to deliver supplies to facilities and patients in an area of more than 7,800 square miles. Upon their return, the drones are caught by an aerial arrestor hook — similar to how fighter jets come to a stop on an aircraft carrier.

Transport Medical Supplies Efficiently

Companies have been exploring using drones to deliver prescriptions and healthcare supplies for several years, but only recently have they received FAA certification to perform regular deliveries.

MissionGO and Zipline are collaborating with or have partnered with hospitals and healthcare providers to transport small cargo medical supplies, such as:

• Medications
• Blood vials or lab specimens
• Vaccines
• Organ and tissue donations

“We work with hospitals and healthcare professionals to prove how UAS can be used to replace traditional, costly, and wasteful methods of transportation,” says Henderson. In June 2022, MissionGO announced their collaboration with Beaumont Health Spectrum Health and Airspace Link where the partners completed a 10-day flight operation “showcasing a real-world UAS transportation program in Southeast Michigan.” The operation compared the effectiveness of UAS transport with multiple deliveries per day against ground transport.

Simultaneously, Zipline has recently partnered with Cardinal Health, Magellan Rx Management, and Novant Health to launch deliveries for the different organizations. “Thanks to our automated, on-demand delivery system, these deliveries can be completed in as little as 15 minutes, providing people and organizations with access to the products they need, when and where they need them,” French says.

Skip the Traffic and Provide Patients the Care They Need

Scenario 1: A patient visits their primary care physician (PCP) for an annual wellness visit, where the PCP prescribes the patient a new medication to help lower the patient’s high cholesterol. The patient lives 45 minutes away from the PCP and local pharmacy. Instead of the patient going to the pharmacy down the street and waiting for their prescription to be filled, they get in their car and drive home. Approximately 30 minutes after arriving home, the patient looks out the window to see a package on their lawn containing their prescription.

Whether the drone gently lands, and the recipient removes the package, as in MissionGO’s equipment, or the package lands in the yard with a parachute slowing its descent, as with Zipline’s equipment, the patient is able to receive their supplies when they live in a remote location or if they don’t have reliable transportation.

Scenario 2: There is a car accident in a busy city, where one of the passengers passes away. The passenger is an organ donor, who is a match for a patient awaiting a kidney transplant on the other side of the city. Physicians of a nearby hospital remove the kidney from the deceased passenger and load it onto a UAS. Operators pilot the UAS across the city to the hospital where the patient and surgeons are waiting. The total flight time is about five minutes, and the kidney is successfully transplanted into the new patient.

The second scenario is similar to one that happened in 2019, and MissionGO was the team piloting the drone with the organ donation as cargo. If the donated kidney was driven across Baltimore to the University of Maryland Medical Center, the trip would have taken much longer than five minutes.

“Drones are not only faster and more environmentally friendly, but also safer for the cargo — there are no potholes in airspace — and in a field where every second counts to save lives, we are proving that there is a better option,” says Henderson.