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Mass General Hospital to experiment with drones to deliver medicine and even medical equipment to patients at home
By adamg on Thu, 01/18/2024 - 12:24pm
Draganfly, a Saskatoon-based drone maker, announced this week that Mass General Brigham will use its cargo drones to get around the Boston area's notorious traffic by delivering to its home patients from the air.
The company makes drones with drop-down winches and "quick-release delivery boxes" that can whiz around with up to 67 pounds of stuff, driven by pilots sitting in a command center.
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Comments
Get used to the Erie sound of
Get used to the Erie sound of commercial drones buzzing around our lower air space.
As if the sounds of high dB traffic and trains and buses and construction wasn’t bad enough, a new font will be opening up and we’ll be fully submerged in noise pollution
Maximum capacity?
Is anyone considering the maximum traffic capacity of urban airspace? We're already seeing Amazon and restaurants using drones to deliver stuff. Now hospitals and probably other pharmacies. Since there's no air-traffic control system in place for drones (or is there?), and I seriously doubt that any of the things are equipped with collision-avoidance radar, how long before midair collisions start dropping drones and goods on the people below?
This is also my major concern with the prospect of flying cars. A three-dimensional rush hour sounds like a nightmare.
Medium skeptical
I don't know. While it's probably a net positive for environmental impact if it replaces some ICE trips, I can't see how this avoids ratcheting up the cost of medical goods even further. Add to that the fact that this company has not yet provided a private customer with drones and services and I have my doubts about the whole thing.
The gains in efficiency you'd have to make to replace fleet vehicles (relatively cheap) and drivers (cheap), with commercial drones (extremely not cheap) and licensed drone pilots (not cheap or abundant) seems like a huge hurdle. I'm curious to see how this sorts out.
High skeptical
Not interested in adding "up to 67 pounds of stuff" falling on my head to my list of commuting hazards.
Exactly
I just know for a fact that I'll be on the Green Line train that gets clobbered from above
New commute(r) just dropped
Can 3 of them get me to work on time though?
Drones
I can hear the panicked 911 calls now. Remember the 'Lite Bright' nonsense a few years back?
Maybe I can get my pizza delivered faster…
…. and hotter when the drones start replacing food delivery drivers. And maybe the bus and bike lanes won’t be blocked by those drivers anymore.
Saskatoon-based drone maker
Really??? No competitive drone makers in Massachusetts? The USA?
I'm.. I'm getting a vision
I'm.. I'm getting a vision... of future Boston 311 complaints about noise and disturbances from these things that Adam will write about on uhub.
Mark this day. 1/18/2024 @ 3:54pm. It will happen.
311's already gotten drone complaints!
Like this one from somebody complaining about being stalked by a drone in the Public Garden. Maybe I'm slipping?
Ready your keyboards
and also your t-shirt cannons.
Would it violate HIPPA since
Would it violate HIPPA since we know things like this go awry?
We Were Promised Jetpacks
All we want is affordable healthcare and they're giving us experimental drone delivery, which no doubt we'll be paying for with increased insurance premiums.
Note to staff
Do not fly over Mass and Cass
Ok...
I completely acknowledge the many potential problems with this...but I am very curious about what drone delivering something would look like. Anyone got a vid?