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Cleveland Clinic to start using drones for medication delivery

Cleveland Clinic plans to begin using drones to deliver certain medications directly to patients' homes, starting in 2025.

It's not a bird, it's not a plane, but you've likely had one buzzing over your head.  Drones are used in police work, real estate, movies, the news, pretty much everything these days.  Soon one may be delivering your medication if you're a Cleveland Clinic patient. 

Eventually, the program will expand to include delivery of lab samples, prescription meals, medical and surgical supplies, and items for hospital-at-home services.  Things that are currently delivered by car or ground delivery. 

"Not only are deliveries via drone more accurate and efficient, the technology we are utilizing is environmentally friendly. The drones are small, electric and use very little energy for deliveries," said Bill Peacock, Chief of Operations at Cleveland Clinic.

Cleveland Clinic will use drone company Zipline's Platform 2 system, which can complete precise deliveries to dense urban areas, and completes a 10-mile delivery in about 10 minutes. Docks for the drones and loading portals will be added at several of Cleveland Clinic's facilities in Northeast Ohio. 

When a prescription is ready and loaded on the drone, it will unlock from dock and fly at an altitude of three hundred feet to the patients home.  The main drone is about six to eight feet wide.  It carries a smaller drone inside that contains the medication.  When the drone reaches its destination, it will deploy the "droid" drone to deliver the package directly the the patient's front porch or steps. 

Patients can follow their delivery on an app and always have the option of opting out of this type of delivery. 

The program won't get off the ground until 2025.  Next year, Cleveland Clinic will work with government officials to ensure compliance with all safety and technical requirements for drone delivery and will start to install the docks and loading portals for the drone system.

The system and aircraft are designed with multiple layers of safety including preflight inspections and real-time monitoring by operations teams. Zipline began delivering medical products in 2016. Today, it operates in seven countries and serves millions of people per day.

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