Drone technology viable solution to local healthcare logistics challenges: expert
An issue faced in Sri Lanka as well as around the globe is about access to vital health products which is hampered by what is known as the last mile problem, according to Dr. Vijith Gunasekara, a Visiting Academic/research Fellow at Warwick Evidence, Department of Health Economics, University of Warwick (UK).
The last mile problem in this context implies the difficulty of supplying medicine from central storage to remotely located patients, when and where they need it.
According to Dr. Gunasekera, this problem requires health systems to tolerate high levels of medicinal wastage, costly emergency trips and sub-optimal care strategies. On the face of it, this means that people in need of life-saving care do not get the medicine they need to survive.
“The government needs to make rational decisions as to what technologies would be offered through the system and what mechanism of financing needs to be adapted,” he said. “In the process, government needs to have the capacity to make evidence based decisions.”
UK National Institute for clinical and Care Excellence (NICE) is an example of such an organised system where those investment decisions are made through a comprehensive, in-depth analysis of the issue and solution, according to Dr. Gunasekera.
“They mainly consider aspects of clinical effectiveness and cost effectiveness; that is patient benefits
and cost benefits as country. Health Technology Assessment (HTA) plays the key role in this regard in finding evidence and transforming them into decisions.”
However, according to Dr. Gunasekera, technology is not always costly as it may seem on the face of it. There can be interventions that would bring about more benefits in real terms by improving efficiency and patient benefits.
“Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) in healthcare would be such an advantageous consideration as many of our human tasks are now being replaced by machines. Healthcare is no exception to this rule,” Dr. Gunasekera stressed.
A classic example of AI in healthcare in the current context would be the use of drone technology in healthcare delivery.
Drones can do wonders in the healthcare sector as they can be coupled with artificial Intelligence. They can be of help in many ways, particularly “as a cost-effective healthcare logistics solution.”
“Drones can deliver emergency blood, medicine and other urgent consumables to any designated location with minimal human involvement. These technologies are already successfully used in countries such as Rwanda and Ghana. The health authorities have been able to organise their distribution systems in a more centralised manner, and by doing that, they have improved their efficiency to almost no stock-outs, timely delivery, just in time - supply chain management and drastic reduction of wastage,” Dr. Gunasekera said.
In the event of a disaster situation, where accessibility would be the biggest challenge, emergency deliveries of rare blood and urgent medicines and consumables could be done with the assistance of such technology with a marginal cost.
“An example for this is the Tsunami in 2004; where frequent flood and land slide situations, frequent road traffic accidents and mass casualty situations, created accessibility issues to some rural areas that required immediate relief and assistance.”
Apart from emergencies, many countries are looking at using drones and related AI technologies in routine healthcare delivery to improve accessibility in the rural settings for chronic disaster management, health promotion and prevention as well as other public health activities.
In summary, healthcare technologies are evolving and advancing. No country can evade such an advancement and rapid progression of the health care industry. People will be demanding cutting-edge health technologies.
“It is the responsibility of the policymakers to invest on right tech at the right time that would bring about most benefits to the people through evidence synthesis through a process of health technology assessment,” Dr. Gunasekera stated.