Drone health logistics network in Tacuarembó

In Uruguay's interior departments, the distance between referral centres and rural towns has a direct impact on health logistics. Clinical samples, medicines and other supplies have to travel tens of kilometres between Primary Care Network polyclinics and the hospitals where laboratories, specialists and certain services are concentrated.

In Tacuarembó, CIELUM developed together with Tacuarembó Regional Hospital and the department's Primary Care Network a Drone Delivery network designed specifically for that reality.

The solution adds long-range drones as a new layer on top of existing health logistics. Its aim is not to replace ambulances, vehicles or ground transport, but to use the air where it brings a concrete advantage: moving small, critical cargo faster, more flexibly and more often, avoiding unnecessary patient journeys and freeing health resources for the tasks where they are truly needed.

As of December 2025, the accumulated experience exceeds 500 health flights and has contributed to the care of more than 5,000 patients.

The challenge: connecting primary care with centralised services

Tacuarembó combines a departmental capital, where more complex health services are concentrated, with a wide network of rural towns and polyclinics.

For many patients, this creates a significant logistical dependency. A blood or urine sample taken at a polyclinic may need to travel to the hospital for processing. In the same way, certain medicines or supplies have to travel the other way to reach communities.

When there is no frequent transport, a logistics problem becomes an access problem. Patients may have to travel to the departmental capital for tests or to speed up a diagnosis. In other cases, samples are sent using health vehicles that could otherwise be providing care.

The case initially analysed in Tacuarembó even showed situations where logistics could add up to four days to the processing of certain samples.

The opportunity was to turn these low-weight, high-value health movements into a more agile network.

An aerial network integrated into the health system

CIELUM designed a logistics network whose main hub is Tacuarembó Regional Hospital, connected by air routes to Primary Care Network polyclinics.

Among the first towns connected are Tambores and Curtina, showing that an unmanned aircraft can be integrated into the health system's usual workflows and carry different types of cargo according to each centre's needs.

The network was designed to move cargo in both directions:

• blood and urine samples for clinical testing;
• medicines and other health supplies;
• breast milk;
• critical supplies required by the polyclinics.

This two-way model makes the most of every connection. A flight can take medicines from the hospital to a town and return with samples that need to be processed in the capital.

In this way, the drone stops being an isolated delivery solution and becomes part of a health logistics circuit.

More than 500 health flights

Continuous operations made it possible to move from validating a technology to building real service experience.

Data as of December 2025:

• 500+ health flights completed
• 5,000+ patients reached
• transport of medicines, blood and urine samples and breast milk
• connections between Tacuarembó Regional Hospital and the polyclinic network
• flights of up to about 100 km, depending on the configuration and conditions of the mission

The accumulated volume of operations is especially relevant from a commercial perspective: it allows Drone Delivery to be assessed not just as a technology demonstration, but as a tool that can be built into a health network and run on a recurring basis.

The value is in time

In health logistics, the weight of a load does not necessarily reflect its importance.

A clinical sample may weigh a few hundred grams, but when it reaches the laboratory can determine when a patient gets a diagnosis. A medicine may take up very little space and still be critical for someone tens of kilometres from the hospital.

It is precisely in these kinds of movements that unmanned aerial transport offers its greatest advantage.

The project analysis identified the possibility of making certain deliveries in about 40% less time than conventional means, taking advantage of direct air routes and avoiding the detours of the road network.

Early experience also showed reductions of up to four days in the time associated with certain blood and urine tests, because samples could be moved without waiting for the next available ground transport.

For patients, this potentially means less waiting and fewer journeys. For the health system, it means an additional option for moving priority cargo.

Freeing up health resources

Another benefit of the model appears when you look at which resource currently carries out a given journey.

In rural towns, an ambulance may be one of the few means available to transport a sample or collect a medicine. But every time that vehicle leaves its area for a logistics task, it is temporarily unavailable for an emergency.

Drone Delivery makes it possible to separate the two functions.

The aircraft moves the cargo; the ambulance stays available to move people.

This distinction sums up much of the project's value proposition. The innovation is not just that a drone can carry a box. It is reorganising logistics so that each health system resource is used where it creates the most value.

At the same time, reducing certain ground journeys can lower the kilometres travelled and the energy used for light loads.

A platform ready to expand

The characteristics of the territory mean the Tacuarembó case can extend well beyond the first connections.

The range of the aircraft used makes it possible to assess routes to towns such as Ansina, Toscas de Caraguatá, Achar, Paso del Cerro, Piedra Sola, Montevideo Chico, Sauce de Batoví and Paso de los Novillos, among others.

There is also a particularly relevant opportunity in contingencies. Some towns can lose road access during floods or other events. An aerial network deployed in advance can provide a complementary channel for critical cargo when road infrastructure is limited.

The same logic can be replicated in other interior departments of Uruguay with a similar health structure: a departmental capital with specialised services and a wide primary care network spread across distant towns.

Tacuarembó thus serves as a demonstration case for a logistics architecture that can be adapted to other health networks.

From moving products to connecting services

The project's main lesson is that Drone Delivery should not be designed around the aircraft, but around the health need.

The question is not "where can a drone fly?", but "which movements are limiting the health network today, and which of them can be solved better by air?"

Starting from that question, it is possible to identify routes, frequencies and loads where the solution creates real value.

In Tacuarembó, that approach made it possible to build a network that carries samples to laboratories, sends medicines and supplies to polyclinics and reduces the need for certain patient and health vehicle journeys.

With more than 500 health flights and more than 5,000 patients reached as of December 2025, the project shows how aerial technology can evolve from an experimental capability into a concrete health logistics tool.

Purpose

Making distance matter less in access to health.

CIELUM combines aerial technology, infrastructure and operational experience to connect hospitals, polyclinics and communities through logistics networks adapted to the real needs of each territory.