Drone Technology; an effective solution for healthcare logistics
“Drone technology is a classic example of AI ( Artificial Intelligence) that can used in health care delivery. Drones can do wonders in health care stings as they can be coupled with artificial Intelligence. Particularly as a cost effective healthcare logistics solution, drones could be of immense help in an event of an emergency disaster situation where the accessibility would be the biggest challenge,” remarked Dr. Vijith Gunasekara, the Former Director of National Blood Transfusion Service, while sharing his expertise on the recent innovations of healthcare industry, at a video conferenced media round table, held in Colombo recently.
According to Dr. Gunasekara, a similar delivery mechanism is adopted in successfully in countries such as Rwanda and Ghana, where emergency blood, medicine and other urgent consumables are delivered to any designated location with minimal human involvement. The health authorities of the said countries have been able to organise their distribution systems in a more centralised manner and by doing that, they have improved their efficiency almost to nil stock- outs, timely delivery, just in time - supply chain management and drastic reduction of wastage.
It was pointed out that apart from emergencies, many countries are looking at using drones and related AI technologies in routine health care delivery to improve accessibility in the rural settings for chronic disaster management, health promotion and prevention as well as other public health activities.
Dr. Gunasekara further pointed out the importance of acquiring the correct technology for the advancement of the Sri Lankan healthcare system, “Rapid advancement in healthcare technologies will be a major challenge in the era of 4th industrial revolution. In this era of information, many will be aware of available technologies elsewhere in the world and people will demand for such technologies as soon as they are available in the market. Acquisition of new technologies would be more challenging in our context as our health system is funded by a taxed based public financing mechanism. The Biggest challenge of such acquisition would be the cost of these health technologies and it will further burden the country’s health care budgets.”