UK tests drones for delivering health supplies to hard-to-reach Eastern Kentucky
After weeks of tests, training and lots of data, a drone carrying a small package containing hand sanitizer, gloves, a spray bottle and other essentials was delivered to a Perry County home on Dec. 16.
“It was a great moment after several months of preparing, writing grants and gathering data,” said Bart Massey, executive director of USA Drone Port, a nonprofit based in Hazard that helped spearhead the multiagency pilot project to see if drones could deliver personal protection equipment to hard-to-reach, remote areas of Eastern Kentucky.
Nine other people in the Eastern Kentucky area are expected to get similar packages via drone as part of the University of Kentucky-funded study called the “Jericho Project.”
“We hope to be wrapped up by the end of February or April by the latest,” said Chris Stiles, director of operations for USA Drone Port.
But the Jericho Project could be expanded to a much larger area and for many more uses, those involved in the study said.
Flooding, snow, severe storms can make roads in more remote parts of Eastern Kentucky impassable. Some people don’t have reliable access to transportation. Drones could be used in the future to deliver medicine to people who are not able to leave their homes, Massey said.
“It could be used to deliver insulin or batteries for home oxygen tanks,” Massey said.
The Jericho Project is being monitored by other groups across the country, said Ellen Hahn, the director of the UK Center for Appalachian Research in Environmental Sciences, known as UK CARES, and professor of nursing at the university. UK CARES funded the project. UK did not disclose the amount of that funding.
“I think it’s exciting, and I think it’s novel,” Hahn said. “And I think people around the country are kind of watching us to see what happens with this project.”
How the Jericho Project began
In Washington, D.C., for a conference the week of March 10, Massey noticed Reagan National Airport was nearly deserted as states began to shut down and air traffic was extremely limited.
With air traffic and other transportation networks operating at minimal capacity and people being asked to stay home and away from others, drones could play a critical role in a coronavirus response, Massey thought on the plane ride back to Kentucky.
“We got back to Kentucky and asked ourselves how can we do something to help people at risk — to get packages to people that have diabetes and need insulin or need batteries for their wheelchairs?” Massey said. “ We contacted the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration), we talked to the National Guard. Nobody really had an answer for us legally how to do it, the methodology, or anything.”
Massey had started Drone Port four years ago. To date, in collaboration with Hazard Community and Technical College, Drone Port has trained 125 people in unmanned aircraft, bringing much-needed jobs and job training to an area that has been decimated by the loss of coal jobs. Those 125 people now use that training in search and rescue, in surveying electric and railroad lines and in photography. Drone Port has also written 11 different books on drones and unmanned aircraft.
Massey and others tried to obtain federal funding in the first round of coronavirus relief to study the idea, but that effort was unsuccessful.
Enter UK.
Robert Donovan, a friend of Massey’s, was on the board of UK’s Center of Excellence in Rural Health and suggested Massey speak to UK about the project.
Fran Feltner, director of the UK Center of Excellence in Rural Health in Hazard, said community health workers with the center’s Homeplace program, which serves 30 rural counties, were immediately receptive to the pilot project.
“Community health workers just do enormous things, above and beyond what you would normally hear in health care, to reach out to people, to access their medication, access things that they need, like handicap ramps, housing repairs and transportation,” said Feltner. “When you live in rural areas of Kentucky, a lot of times you have to be inventive to find solutions for the population that you serve, and so to me, this was a perfect match.”
Meanwhile, during a March advisory meeting for UK CARES, health care workers reported many people in Eastern Kentucky were not taking COVID-19 seriously. Gloves, hand sanitizer and other cleaning supplies were in high demand but short supply at the time.
“They didn’t have access to personal protective equipment like masks and gloves and disinfectant wipes,” Hahn said. “Knowing that there are a lot of remote regions in that part of the state, we started putting two-and-two together.”
With funding from UK CARES, community health workers from Homeplace and technical know-how and drones from USA Drone Port, the project was launched.
Homeplace health workers have worked with USA Drone Port to identify clients that need services. Two Homeplace employees have already been trained as “visual observers” to help drone pilots land packages packed with PPE for clients.
Homeplace staff also work with those clients on how that personal protection equipment works.
“Whatever we take — hand sanitizers or masks — not only are we going to deliver that to our clients, but we’re going to train them on the proper use of that. If you don’t use it properly, it doesn’t do any good,” said Mace Baker, director of Homeplace.
The future use of drones in Eastern Kentucky
The Jericho Pilot data will hopefully be used to secure more grant money to show how drones can be used to deliver much-needed health supplies to a larger area, Massey said.
Many commercial companies have done similar studies and trials, but those studies are typically in dense, flatter areas, which are easier to navigate and have more customers. There has been little to no research of rural, mountainous areas, said Stiles.
“We started with the hard,” Stiles said.
That first delivery on Dec. 16 was in a hollow between two mountains.
“Future deliveries will be more difficult,” Massey said.
Hahn hopes drones could also be used to do other research in Eastern Kentucky.
“It could provide a cost-effective way to do future air, water and soil sampling for environmental health studies,” Hahn said.
Feltner, of UK’s Center for Excellence in Rural Health, said the Jericho Project also proves that big, bold ideas don’t always come from big cities.
“You hear of all these things that happen in the big cities, and you don’t necessarily hear about inventions and innovative things in rural Kentucky,” Feltner said, “If we can be on the forefront of innovation, I think it’s just an awesome goal to reach between all of us.”
