Mexico’s Sincronia Logistica has now made more than 100 deliveries of COVID-19 medical supplies to IMSS General Regional Hospital II in El Marqués, Querétaro, from its ground-based fleet of delivery vehicles and is planning to help rapidly expand the use of drones throughout Mexico among emergency responders and healthcare officials.
“We have been in this project for more than three years now, doing research and developing the business model and technology,” said Diego Garcia, Director of Business Excellence at the company. “The kickoff of our project was in August 2019 in Mexico City in a public Mexican healthcare institution named ISSSTE Bicentenario de la Independencia in which with the help of the staff of the hospital, we made the first medical drone delivery in our country. We delivered medical supplies for highly specialised surgical procedures – hip, elbow,and knee for example – in which the patient needed orthopedic implants to reconstruct a certain part of their body. With these deliveries we managed to reduce the delivery time up to 85% using a drone compared with a ground transport. From there we made our first drone delivery van prototype early this year, so that we don’t have to rely on a fixed warehouse to make deliveries, and as a result have the flexibility to go anywhere and make deliveries even on hard to reach areas.”
“In April this year with the worldwide pandemic of COVID-19 we offered our services to a second public Mexican healthcare institution in the city of Queretaro, IMSS El Marques, a regional hospital that is currently treating only COVID-19 patients. From there our company made donations to the hospital (protective masks, gloves, protective clothing, safety goggles, sanitizer, etc.) and delivered them via drone so that we could minimize the human contact and avoid further infections.
“We managed to reduce the delivery time up to 75% compared to ground transport; we made 105 deliveries adding more than 60kg of material transported and more than 200 km travelled. And if the pandemic continues our plan is to make further donations to the hospital and deliver them via drone at the end of this month. “
According to Diegio Garcia, the company hopes its operation will trigger a wave of innovation and Mexico becomes one of the first countries in the world to have a healthcare system supported by cutting-edge drone technology
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