Friday, December 1, 2017

Drones Used in Delivery of Medical Supplies

There have been a lot of news about how drones could revolutionize the delivery/transportation industry. Here in Rwanda, a small landlocked country in east-central Africa which is trying to recover from the genocide sponsored by the government in the mid-1990s, drones are flying in the sky to transport medical supplies to save people’s lives.

An automated logistics firm, Zipline International Inc., based in San Francisco, is operating drones in cooperation with the Rwandan government in order to deliver blood and vaccines on demand for hospitals in the country. According to hospital officials, a delivery of medical supplies would take three hours or more in local traffic because hospitals are located in remote areas which are isolated by “rugged terrain, bad roads, and seasonal flooding.” However, drones now can help them transport those precious medical supplies in as short as 15 minutes that could save the lives of patients.

Not only in rural areas such as countries in Africa but also in urban areas with congested streets, Drones can play a key role in medical transportation. In a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers in Sweden found that drones were able to deliver external defibrillators to heart attack patients 16 minutes faster than ambulance would.
In densely populated areas where there is a lot of air traffic, it is not easy to fly drones, and governments have to deal with safety issues which drones can cause. On the other hand, there is a need for fast delivery of medical supplies such as red blood cells, platelets, and so forth since traffic jams occur frequently, which blocks ambulance. I hope we can overcome potential safety problems that flying drones can cause, and governments set regulatory framework for the drone industry as soon as possible. Drones will be able to improve hospital operations and could save your life in the future.    

Related Article
How drones could be 'lifesaving' in an emergency 
www.cnn.com/2017/10/09/health/ambulance-drone-teching-care-of-your-health/index.html



1 comment:

  1. I read some others articles about this. i noticed that the drone are specially designed for transporting goods and for resisting the winds in the field. I am happy to see the extension of drone for this kind of purpose.

    Though I did not use a drone before, I learn it is not so easy to control. Some technologies ,however, overcome this and provide automatics drone that to the destination on it own.

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