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The logistics of today's health care system "really only serves the" billion gold "of the planet," said Keller Rinaudo, Managing Director of Zipline International. Millions of others are dying of lack of care.
Most people view drone delivery as science fiction or at least as a limited idea to order takeaway for dinner. But this is not the case, said Rinaudo to the public Tuesday at The wealth Brainstorm Health Conference in San Diego. His Californian company uses this tiny plane to transport medical products to countries where infrastructure is sorely lacking. And it works, he says.
Today, Rwanda carries 60% of the national blood supply outside its capital, Kigali, with the aid of Zipline UAVs. About half of this blood is used by mothers with postpartum hemorrhage.
The drones spin and run blood 10 meters above sea level. They are accurate enough to be delivered to a mailbox configured by a resident and do not require a runway to take off and land.
Conventional health systems strike a balance between access and waste, the result of "last mile" service. After two years of collecting data while operating nationwide, Rinaudo said Zipline was able to help Rwanda reduce its waste by 6% to 0% while increasing its access. (The company has completed nearly 4,000 emergency shipments that have saved lives in the past year alone, he says.)
Encouraged by its results in Rwanda, Zipline plans to build four distribution centers in Ghana, more than 3,000 kilometers east. The first center arrives April 24, said Rinaudo, and is a milestone in the provision of medical products to 20 million people.
For Rinaudo, drones are a way for a country to access universal health care almost overnight. Call it a golden idea.
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