| Title | FAA Approves Blood Toting Drones at North Carolina Hospital | |
| Date | Wednesday March 27 2019, @05:20AM | |
| Author | martyb | |
| Topic | ||
| from the beware-the-circling-vampires dept. | ||
For the first time ever, the FAA has approved the routine commercial use of drones to carry a product.
The WakeMed program will start by flying patients’ medical samples one-third of a mile (.5 kilometer) from a medical park to the main hospital building for lab testing at least six times a day five days a week, Matternet CEO Andreas Raptopoulos said in an interview. Vials of blood or other specimens will be loaded into a secure box and carried to a drone launching pad, where they will be fastened to the aircraft and flown to another building. He said the flights will technically be within sight of operators on either end of the route, and they are authorized to fly above people.
Samples are typically driven on the ground and the goal of this project is to cut down how long it typically takes to transport time-sensitive samples to their destination for testing.
the North Carolina program could expand to flying miles-long routes between Raleigh-area WakeMed buildings in the coming months, Raptopoulos said. He also said medical specimen flights could start at one or two more hospitals in other cities later in 2019.
Other approvals by the FAA have been for limited tests and demos.
North Carolina is one of nine sites participating in the FAA’s pilot program to accelerate integrating drones for new uses ranging from utility inspections to insurance claims. The test sites get leeway trying new innovations while working closely with the federal officials in charge of regulating the drones.
Can we get a black-helicopter drone that doesn't make any noise?
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printed from SoylentNews, FAA Approves Blood Toting Drones at North Carolina Hospital on 2024-05-12 11:00:36