How Rwanda is using drones to improve health care

by Angie Basiouny, University of Pennsylvania

edited by Gaby Clark, reviewed by Andrew Zinin

Gaby Clark

Scientific Editor

Meet our editorial team
Behind our editorial process

Andrew Zinin

Chief Editor

Meet our editorial team
Behind our editorial process Editors' notes

This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

fact-checked

trusted source

proofread

The GIST Add as preferred source

In 2016, the government of Rwanda began using drones to bypass the country's hilly terrain and speed up the delivery of blood products to hospitals. It was an ambitious project that officials hoped would both increase the survival rate of patients in critical need of transfusions and help hospitals better manage their valuable inventory of blood products.

The decade-long project has been an undeniable success, according to a study by Wharton experts that found drone delivery not only dramatically improved patient outcomes, it also helped improve one of the most challenging and costly steps in the supply chain: the last mile.

Facilities served by drones reduced their in-hospital deaths of mothers with postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) by 51%, and among trauma patients by 30%. On the inventory management side, hospitals served by drones have decreased the amount of red blood cells they keep in stock by 63%. That's important because blood products are scarce and perishable, meaning unused products can expire. The study found that drone delivery helped hospitals reduce that wastage by 40%.

"That they have been able to save all these mothers is hugely impactful," said Hummy Song, a professor of operations, information and decisions who co-authored the study. "We did all sorts of robustness checks to make sure that it's not some spurious finding. We also talked to clinicians on the ground who described how it directly impacted the care they delivered."

The paper, "Last-Mile Delivery in Healthcare: Drone Delivery for Blood Products in Rwanda," was published in the journal Manufacturing & Service Operations Management. The co-authors are Harriet Jeon, a postdoctoral researcher at Penn's Leonard Davis Institute and former Wharton doctoral student; Claudio Lucarelli, a Wharton professor of health care management; Jean Baptiste Mazarati of the University of Global Health Equity in Rwanda; and Donatien Ngabo with the Rwanda Ministry of Health.

Jeon said the study is exciting because it tests a seemingly intuitive operational solution in the context of a real health system. On paper, drone delivery offers a compelling alternative to driving several hours—often across unpaved roads—to reach blood banks. But given the emerging nature of drone delivery, stakeholders lacked rigorous evidence on whether, and to what extent, it would improve both operations and patient outcomes.

"We expected faster delivery to improve how hospitals manage blood products," she said. "But the study allowed us to quantify just how large those changes were."

Rwanda introduced a universal health care model in the early 2000s and now reports that 93% of the population has coverage, which is the highest rate in sub-Saharan Africa. Officials are continuing to build the nation's health care system, and Jeon and Song said takeaways from the study can help guide their decision-making.

"When they think about investing in these innovations, they need to know the impact," Song said. "It's been a privilege to contribute to these conversations and answer their questions with research-backed findings."

The first drone takes flight

The project began with a public-private partnership between Rwanda's government and Zipline International Inc., a fixed-wing drone delivery firm. After a year of planning, the first drone port went online in 2016 in Muhanga, located about 48 kilometers (30 miles) from the capital, Kigali. A second port in Kayonza, in Rwanda's Eastern Province, became operational in 2019.

As of June 2020, the two ports served 29 public hospitals. Instead of hospital personnel driving to and from the regional blood banks, as was the case before drone delivery was adopted, blood products are delivered from the national blood bank to the drone ports two or three times a week.

When hospitals need blood, they call or text an order to the drone port, where employees need less than 10 minutes to fulfill the order, pack it into the underbelly of the drone and launch it. The package is air-dropped at a specific site for collection, and the drone automatically returns to the port. A task that once took several hours is now completed in 15 minutes to an hour, depending on the hospital's proximity to the port.

Each hospital continues to manage its own inventory of red blood cells, but it can call on the drone for a resupply or an emergency order for immediate use. During the study period, 60% of deliveries were for resupplies, and 40% of deliveries were for emergencies.

Drone delivery also changed the way hospitals handle three other blood products—platelets, fresh frozen plasma and cryoprecipitate. These products cannot be stored on-site at Rwandan hospitals because of their restrictive storage requirements, so hospitals would drive to get them as needed. Now, they are stored at the drone ports and dispatched within minutes.

The authors found that all hospitals that adopted drone delivery decreased their inventory of red blood cells. Hospitals farthest from the ports made the biggest gains in reducing waste from expired supply.

"Reducing wastage was a really meaningful impact of this intervention because it's very costly not only to get the blood donations, but to test and package and distribute it. If a blood product that you got all the way through the system goes to waste before you can use it, that's just money gone," Song said.

Drone deliveries save lives, but not at equal rates

While the in-hospital mortality rate for patients experiencing trauma or postpartum hemorrhage declined overall, the degree of reduction varied by hospital. Facilities closest to the drone ports experienced the greatest reduction, and their proximity to the ports also allowed them to use a better mix of the blood products compared with hospitals farther away. The authors said the results point to the importance of where drone ports are located relative to the hospitals they serve when planning future ports, even when drone delivery is faster than driving.

"Every hospital is able to hold less inventory regardless of its distance to the port, but the contrast in improvements in health outcomes was quite interesting and compelling," Jeon said. "It shows that operational improvements don't always benefit patients at all hospitals equally."

Drones are increasingly being used around the world, and the project is an example of how the technology can be deployed to help rather than harm. Jeon and Song said officials in Rwanda have now expanded the number of ports and the types of products drones deliver. Drone delivery may not be needed for blood products at many U.S. hospitals with reliable supply, but Song said drones could be deployed in different ways, perhaps to improve service in rural areas where health facilities have been shuttering.

"In those areas, it's hard for people to reach the care they need," she said. "Telemedicine has been growing, and you can imagine that if you can marry that with drone delivery for medicines or other supplies, you can help bridge the health gap in the U.S."

More information

H. Harriet Jeon et al, Frontiers in Operations: Last-Mile Delivery in Healthcare: Drone Delivery for Blood Products in Rwanda, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management (2026). DOI: 10.1287/msom.2025.0055

Clinical categories

Hospital medicineObstetrics & gynecologyCommon illnesses & Prevention Provided by University of Pennsylvania Who's behind this story?

Gaby Clark

MA in English, copy editor since 2021 with experience in higher education and health content. Dedicated to trustworthy science news. Full profile →

Andrew Zinin

Master's in physics with research experience. Long-time science news enthusiast. Plays key role in Science X's editorial success. Full profile →

Citation: How Rwanda is using drones to improve health care (2026, June 25) retrieved 26 June 2026 from https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-06-rwanda-drones-health.html This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.