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UPS to Expand Medical Drone Service to University of Utah Health

Announcement comes after UPS Flight Forward received FAA’s first Part 135 Standard approval for drone airline.

UPS announces the expansion of its drone delivery service. UPS Flight Forward will begin drone flights at the University of Utah Health campus in Salt Lake City. The University of Utah is the first hospital campus expansion after the service was launched at WakeMed’s flagship hospital in Raleigh, N.C. The WakeMed program announced in March marked the first FAA-sanctioned use of a drone for routine revenue flights in the U.S. In September, UPS’s drone airline subsidiary, UPS Flight Forward, received the FAA’s Part 135 Standard certification awarded here in the United States, which gives UPS and Matternet flexibility to rapidly scale hospital operations.

Drone transportation for healthcare logistics is meant to create opportunities for enhanced patient care and cost savings. Currently, the majority of medical samples, instruments, supplies, and documents at University of Utah Health are transported by courier cars. Drones would provide capability for on-demand and same-day delivery, the ability to avoid roadway delays, increase medical delivery efficiency, and improve the patient experience with potentially life-saving benefits, according to the company.

Flight operations at University of Utah Health will be geared toward building out a more cost-efficient medical delivery system as the campus undergoes growth. New medical construction includes its new Acute Care Center, Craig H. Neilsen Rehabilitation Hospital, and Sugar House Health Center. The addition of drone logistics will be used to help establish an environmentally responsible, short-range transportation system in support of the state’s Utah Clean Air partnership.

Standard transport protocols will include medical professionals packing a secure drone payload container with medical items. The drones will then fly autonomously along a predetermined flight path to its delivery point.

Matternet’s unmanned drone system on the Utah medical campus, and also WakeMed, will fly under the FAA’s Part 135 Standard certification granted to UPS on Sept. 27, which makes UPS Flight Forward the first company to attain this key certification. More than 1,500 flights have been completed on the WakeMed campus since operations began there. UPS and Matternet expect to rapidly expand health campus drone deliveries to other locations in the near future as part of UPS Flight Forward’s technology services in support of hospital logistics.

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