Zipline drones to deliver drugs to OhioHealth
OhioHealth last week announced a partnership with Zipline, the world’s largest autonomous delivery service, to integrate Zipline’s fully electric drone delivery into OhioHealth’s network.
Using Zipline’s newly-introduced Platform 2, OhioHealth will bring prescriptions directly to patients’ homes and move lab samples and supplies between OhioHealth facilities.
By 2025, the partnership is expected to form an initial network capable of reaching nearly 2 million people in the greater Columbus area with fast, quiet and sustainable drone delivery.
OhioHealth VP of pharmacy services Charles McCluskey said: “Zipline drone delivery provides a great alternative for OhioHealth as we look to grow our home infusion and specialty pharmacy home delivery services. It gets products to patients more quickly and at a lower cost and uses less carbon intensive packing materials compared to our traditional delivery methods.”
OhioHealth senior director of logistics Joshua Dritz added: “We are constantly looking at how to optimise the logistics of OhioHealth’s network and with our initial Zipline deployment focussed on the laboratory operations, we will significantly cut the time it takes to process lab samples and diagnostics, giving our physicians the information, they need to make informed decisions faster.”
Hillary Brendzel, head of Zipline’s US healthcare practice continued: “We can move lab samples between facilities in minutes and at a moment’s notice, instead of the hours it currently takes. That means that people get diagnosed and treated faster with OhioHealth bringing our innovations to the people they serve across the state.”
OhioHealth will use Zipline’s next-generation Platform 2, which uses autonomous, electric Zipline drones (Zips) to make precise deliveries to rural, suburban, and even dense urban areas across the region. Zipline’s home delivery service is expected to deliver up to seven times faster than traditional automobile delivery, completing 10-mile deliveries in about 10 minutes.
Unlike other drone delivery services, Zips fly more than 300 feet above the ground and are nearly inaudible. When the Zip arrives at its destination, it hovers safely and quietly at that altitude, while its fully autonomous delivery droid manoeuvres down a tether, steers to the correct location, and gently drops off its package to areas as small as a patio table or the front steps of a home. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania found an 88% reduction of in-hospital maternal deaths from to postpartum haemorrhage as a result of Zipline’s logistics and delivery system.