Technology making a difference at scale

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Post HIMSS18, there have been many recaps from people who attended. I won’t try to do that but have listed several of them at the end of this post under “resources”.  Instead, I want to share with you a keynote on the final day of the conference. It represents what is possible when a team of dedicated engineers set out to solve a real problem in healthcare at scale. In fact, as I listened, it seemed like the ultimate in “health IT connect” – the name I gave this weekly blog back in 2014.

Keller Rinaudo, co-founder and CEO of Zipline, captivated those still around on Friday morning with his keynote full of stories and video clips describing the first autonomous logistics system delivering blood and medical supplies to people in Rwanda and Tanzania. Or as one of my colleagues called it this week when we were talking about it – the “blood bomber”.

As their website says, “Zipline operates the world’s only drone delivery system at national scale to send urgent medicines, such as blood and animal vaccines, to those in need – no matter where they live.” The problem they are addressing is that “more than two billion people lack adequate access to essential medical products, such as blood and vaccines, due to challenging terrain and gaps in infrastructure.”  In his opening at the keynote, Keller showed a truck stuck in the mud on an impassable road and asked, “Why depend on roads?”

Zipline developed a solution to improve access to supplies “by flying over impassable mountains and washed-out roads, delivering directly to remote clinics”. Their approach involves centralized supply, so they can “provide on-demand deliveries, completely reducing waste and stock-outs”.

As described recently in The Telegraph article, Pointing the way: how medical drones are saving lives in Africa, “in the next few months, Zipline will open a new service in Tanzania that within a year will be serving 1,000 clinics and 12M people with a new model of unmanned aircraft that will be the world’s fastest delivery drone.” The article goes on to say, “drone delivery pioneers have found African countries quick to embrace the new technology and realize that it is about far more than American Predator craft firing Hellfire missiles at terrorists”.

Zipline is reaching scale fast. According to the article, “the 15 Zips in Rwanda have flown more than 200,000 miles, delivering 7,000 units of blood in 7,500 on-demand flights. A second base due to be opened this year will extend coverage across the whole country using an extra 30-35 drones”. And Tanzania will scale even further – “four bases will each be equipped with about 30 craft capable of making around 500 flights a day”.

During Keller’s keynote, I was trying to live tweet – a skill that I have not yet mastered. You have to be able to listen, type, add the hashtags and handles all at a rapid pace. But I gave it a shot. I wanted to share the insights with a wider audience of HIMSS attendees and non-attendees.

Here are some of the key insights from Keller that I madly tweeted away:

  • Way too much technology sitting in research labs and not being applied.
  • More than 1100 life and death cases since Zipline started.

  • Can only solve problems with entrepreneurs, hard working engineers and technology, not just philanthropy.

  • Anyone can pick up pencil, do a napkin sketch, and be willing to crash. Inspiring technology entrepeneurs to solve problems.

After we gave Keller a standing ovation, I walked out of that keynote reminded why I am passionate about working in healthcare and finding ways that technology can solve real problems and make a difference. After a week of meetings with potential customers, channel partners, and visiting with my HIT colleagues I was again inspired by the possibilities that technology holds for healthcare.

I encourage you to check out Zipline’s website, watch the video, and read the Telegraph article. I guarantee if you are passionate about healthcare you too will be inspired.

Resources: (HIMSS18 recaps I promised)

HIMSS18 Debrief: 5 Impressions

#HCBix HIMSS18 interview series

Live from HIMSS2018 – Cloud, Consumer, and Interoperability All Come Up Big

What I learned at the CHIME CIO Forum 2018

2 thoughts on “Technology making a difference at scale”

  1. Rich Pollack on said:

    Sue,

    This really is so inspiring and truly helps put our “first world” problems in perspective.

    Rich

    Reply ↓

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