Drones fly blood samples, medical items around hospital campus

Drones are used now being used to transport special deliveries on the campus of WakeMed Hospital in Raleigh, North Carolina. This is the first that the FAA has allowed regular commercial flights involving a payload.

Administrators at the hospital said that the main lab may not get a blood sample for many hours because of traditional logistics. So the hospital enlisted help from the men and women in brown—UPS—and remote-controlled aerial drones.

It is not an especially long route—only about a third of a mile. But with six trips a day, five days a week, the hospital will save a lot of time. Patients and staff here will also benefit from this pilot program because of the obvious medical benefits of faster lab results

Earlier this month, the FAA allowed drones to deliver defibrillators to heart attack patients.