It’s successfully helping the medical system in Ghana and Rwanda. Now the drone company thinks it can help streamline U.S. medical deliveries while maintaining social distancing. Zipline, a medical drone delivery company that launched in Rwanda , planned to come to the U.S. later this year. But as the coronavirus crisis grows, the company is now working with government regulators to try to launch as soon as possible. Read Full Story

It’s part of Matternet’s system of using drones to deliver medical samples to labs faster. In a few weeks, when a new drone station is installed outside a hospital in Lugano, Switzerland, hospital staff will put samples that need to get tested inside, and the station will autonomously load those samples into a drone. Then the top of the onion-shaped tower will unfurl to launch the drone into the air—sending the package to a nearby lab for quicker results than would otherwise be possible. Read Full Story

The FAA has issued Amazon a certificate for unmanned aircraft systems, bringing it one step closer to its dream of 30-minute delivery with drones. Amazon is taking to the skies. Read Full Story

Drone delivery might sound new, but it’s been in the works for 100 years. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Google’s Wing delivery drones have supplied Virginia residents with toilet paper and medicine , while some grocers have turned to drones to fulfill unprecedented demand for grocery deliveries. Late this summer, Amazon moved a crucial step closer to offering consumers drone deliveries in half an hour or less when the tech giant secured a Part 135 air carrier certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration, allowing it to operate commercial drone flights. Read Full Story

The size and shape of a labor and delivery unit, the standardization of patient rooms, and the distribution of nursing stations can all influence C-section rates at hospitals. In the United States, one third of babies are born by cesarean delivery; but up to 45% of these surgeries may not medically indicated. The rates of cesarean delivery vary dramatically from hospital to hospital—from a modest 7% at some facilities to a whopping 70% at others. A study conducted by Ariadne Labs, a health system innovation center, and MASS Design Group, a nonprofit architecture firm, looked at how different aspects of the physical design of a hospital labor and delivery unit could lead to a higher rate of cesarean deliveries. Read Full Story

Over a 13-year period, healthcare workers donning masks had a 50% to 80% reduction in contracting novel coronaviruses, including COVID-19. As the U.S. healthcare system has been battling shortages of surgical masks, N95 respirators , and face shields , one lingering question has remained: Does all this PPE actually prevent someone from contracting COVID-19? Especially someone who is tasked with caring for COVID-19 patients day after day during long shifts in hospitals? Read Full Story

Per the Department of Health and Human Services—in underlined font—hospitals should no longer report COVID-19 data to the CDC. Per order from the White House, hospital data on COVID-19 patients will now be sent straight to the Trump administration, bypassing its customary first stop at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Read Full Story

This could be the largest medical cyberattack in U.S. history. Universal Health Services (UHS), a healthcare provider with 400 facilities, had its IT network taken offline by what appears to be a sweeping cyberattack—potentially driven by ransomware—that began over the weekend. UHS previously received a high score from UpGuard , a platform that vets institutional security at enterprises. Read Full Story

An Israeli biometrics startup with a history of defense contracts has applied for a patent on technology that repositions drones to get a better shot of a person on the ground. An Israeli biometrics startup called AnyVision with ties to Israel’s military has applied for a U.S. patent on technology that tells drones how to maneuver to capture better facial recognition images of people on the ground. Read Full Story

The economics of delivery aren’t easy. But these companies have the potential to create a new boom in restaurant entrepreneurship—and go way beyond food. The U.S. app-based delivery economy took shape in the first half of the 2010s as services such as Instacart, DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Postmates came online and early pioneer Grubhub went public. But it took until this decade for the industry to experience its catalyst event. Read Full Story