North Carolina's Department of Transportation is looking toward a future aided by drones, and that could be good news for the medical field.
NCDOT was recently announced as one of 10 participants in the Federal Aviation Administration's Drone Integration Pilot Program.
It's bringing together government and private sector partners to create a system that will allow drones to make medical deliveries. Currently, the majority of these are made by land vehicles.
Basil Yap with the state's Division of Aviation says they're collaborating with industry partners Zipline and Matternet which currently operate overseas.
“All of the drones that we'll be operating are going to be under 55 pounds," he says. "The amount that they can carry is going to range between half a pound up to about 15 pounds.”
At speeds of up to 100 miles per hour, the drones will be used to deliver blood and other supplies to make medical deliveries more efficient.
Dr. Stuart Ginn is a physician with WakeMed in Raleigh and a collaborator on the project. He says it's time the transportation of medical supplies gets an update.
“There's a lot of unpredictable demands when you're delivering healthcare and doing things like surgery," he notes. "And sometimes you need things you didn't anticipate, and sometimes what you need isn't on site. If we have a technology that can ship it around the system very quickly, that's a big win for us.”
Yap says the program will run for three years and that the state hopes to have routine drone operations by the program's conclusion.