Shortening The Last-Mile: Impact of Zipline Medical Drone Delivery on The Operations of Hard-to-Reach Healthcare Facilities in Northern Ghana.

Abstract

Purpose: This research study investigated the impact of Zipline Medical Drone Delivery on the operations of last-mile healthcare facilities in northern Ghana. Design/Methodology/Approach: The research study adopted an exploratory research design to determine the impact of Zipline’s medical drone delivery on the operations of last-mile healthcare facilities in Northern Ghana. An online survey questionnaire was deployed to collect quantitative data from 159 trained employees of last-mile health facilities who were selected through a purposive sampling technique from last-mile drone-served healthcare facilities. Findings: The study established that drone delivery speed, logistics efficiency and availability of drone delivery resources significantly impacted zipline delivery of medical commodities to last-mile public healthcare facilities in Northern Ghana, reducing commodity delivery lead-time and improving access to essential healthcare supplies for efficient service delivery. Research Limitation/Implications: This research focused mainly on the impact of drone delivery of medical commodities on the operations of last-mile public healthcare facilities in Northern Ghana. Practical Implications: The results of this study show that by enhancing drone delivery speed, logistics efficiency and drone resource availability, the operations of public healthcare facilities can be improved by ensuring that essential medicines are made available, patient waiting time is significantly reduced and outpatient services are improved. Social Implication: The study recommends the establishment of a Zipline-Administrators partnership which will eventually result in a reduction of medical commodity lead-time, improved accessibility of patients to essential health commodity supplies and general cost savings to the community. Originality/Value/Novelty: Although drone technology has been the subject of numerous studies in Ghana, none has investigated the impact of medical commodity drone delivery services on the operations of last-mile healthcare facilities in Northern Ghana. This study therefore explored the impact of drone delivery services from the last-mile healthcare facilities’ perspective.