UC San Diego Health’s https://health.ucad.edu new drone pilot program is being used to test the use of unmanned aerial vehicles to transport medical samples, supplies, and documents between UC San Diego Health’s Jacobs Medical Center and Moores Cancer Center, plus to the Center for Advanced Laboratory Medicine (CALM).
The drones follow predetermined, low risk flight paths, initially between Jacobs Medical Center and special landing sites at Moores Cancer Center located less than a mile away and then subsequently on to CALM, which is near the Jacobs Medical Center. The flights take only minutes to complete and are monitored by remote operators.
The UC San Diego Health drone pilot program calls for medical professionals at Jacobs Medical Center located on the east health campus of UC San Diego, to pack payloads such as blood samples of documents into a secure container that attaches to one of Matternet’s M2 rechargeable battery-powered drones.
The program is collaborating with UPS https://ups.com/healthcare which is authorized to use unmanned aircraft systems for a drone delivery program and Matternet, https://mttr.net, a Mountain View, California-based drone system developer for healthcare institutions.
This pilot is built upon the UPS and Matternet drone project already taking place at WakeMed Health and Hospitals https://www.wakemed.org, a private, non-profit healthcare system based in Raleigh North Carolina. There the drones are sent to a nearby clinic with supplies.
Matthew Jenusaitis, Chief Administrative Officer for Innovation and Transformation at UC San Diego Health reports, “With drones, we want to demonstrate proof-of-concept for getting vital samples where they need to go for testing or assessment more quickly and simply. It’s another way to leverage emerging technologies in a way that can tangibly benefit our patients.”