A St. Louis-based organ transplant organization hopes to use drones to transport blood samples.
Mid-America Transplant is an organ and tissue procurement organization that serves eastern Missouri, southern Illinois and northeast Arkansas. It currently transports blood samples and other organ donation-related matter by ground vehicle or aircraft, which can be time-consuming and costly. A trip to deliver blood samples by aircraft costs around $10,000.
CEO Kevin Lee wanted to find a cheaper alternative. He said the same trip using a drone costs $1,000.
Lee said using drones will also prevent people in rural areas from having to travel for hours to give blood samples. He said this is what he sees as the biggest impact of the project.
“They don’t have the same access as those of us who live in St. Louis or Springfield,” Lee said. “How do we support them? How do we ensure that they have access to equitable health care in a relevant and time-efficient manner?”
Mid-America Transplant plans to use fixed-wing drones, which are about six feet long, weigh around 40 pounds and travel a 100-mile radius. The company is working with the Federal Aviation Administration and Valkyrie UAS on drone technology and logistics.
Lee said he wants to eventually use drones to transport organs. It might also be a helpful method to deliver prescription medication to people living far from a pharmacy.
“There’s really a lot of momentum here to think about, ‘How do we have equitable health care in rural parts of our state and rural parts of our country?’” he said.
Lee’s organization is also working with the University of Missouri-St. Louis on the project.
Shakiba Enayati is an assistant professor in the supply chain and analytics department at UMSL. She said the collaboration’s overall goal is to “eventually give rural patients that similar timely access to health care delivery as those that are living in cities and essentially making medical resources more fairly distributed.”
Enayati said the rural community will benefit from the use of medical drones.
“We are going to provide a more sustainable and forward-thinking health care system, and this is going to really make a big change in the way that we deliver health care,” she said.
Lee said the company is still in the planning and discussion phase of the project and hopes to begin pilot flights later this year or at the beginning of 2025.
