BENGALURU : Aiming to revolutionise drone usage in the service industry, Aster DM Healthcare has partnered with Skye Air Mobility to deliver diagnostic samples and medicines using the technology. The project has been taken up on pilot basis for seven days, to carry medicines and lab samples from Aster RV in JP Nagar to Aster clinics located within Bengaluru city.
“For the first time in the country, such end-to-end reverse logistics with payload has been done here. We make two sorts of deliveries -- picking up diagnostic samples from Aster RV Hospital and delivering to their labs and clinics, and picking up medicines from the pharmacy and delivering to hospital,” explained Ankit Kumar, CEO, Skye Air Mobility, a Delhi-based drone delivery tech firm.
In four days of trials, they did 40 flights and have to complete 80 test flights by the end of the seven-day trial. Skye Air Mobility also recently partnered with Swiggy, the online food delivery set-up. The company is operating in seven cities with a fleet of six drones, and is planning to have 100 drones in the next nine months.
Dr Prashanth N, Chief Operating Officer, Aster RV, says, “We have evaluated new technology in delivering care to patients. We found that a box of samples taken by drone takes almost one-third of the time to reach the lab, vis-a-vis a phlebotomist delivering it by road. Faster turnaround on samples reaching the lab means conclusive diagnostic results.”
However, he said they are working out the cost and weather-related challenges, if any, in using drones.
Explaining that this collaboration will improve customer satisfaction and also be cost-effective for the hospital, Ramesh Kumar, Chief Executive, Aster CMI Hospital said, “If we have to store a chemotherapy drug at all our Aster hospitals, it would be very expensive. Instead, if we could stock it in one place and deliver it to patients on need basis, we will save a lot of money and resources,” he explained.
“Sitting here in Aster lab, I can deliver medicines to Mysuru, Chikkaballapura and other cities within a certain circumference,” Kumar added. Temperature monitoring of samples is very important for accurate results, Kumar said, adding that in-built temperature control mechanism is part of drone technology, and it’s easier to monitor real-time temperature of human specimen samples.
DRONE ADVANTAGE