UMD to Develop Drone-Delivery Program for Patients on Rural Island

Nobody on Smith Island is making a quick run to the pharmacy. The historic fishing community (and namesake of the many-layered cake) straddles the Maryland-Virginia border in the Chesapeake Bay, 10 miles west of the nearest mainland.

Many of its 200 residents are elderly or homebound and increasingly in need of medical care. The island’s lone medical assistant helps shuttle lab samples and prescriptions to and from Crisfield, the closest Eastern Shore, Md., town, via a once-daily ferry, unless winter weather blocks the passage.

“When the ice is heavy it can take six hours to get there—if you can go at all,” said Eddie Somers, a retired fishing boat captain and president of Smith Island’s quasi-governmental body. Somers once had to rely on an ice-breaking boat to deliver a cancer drug to a resident in need.

Thirty miles northwest, John Slaughter saw an opportunity. A retired Navy helicopter pilot whose ground assignments included systems engineering military director for the Naval Air Systems Command, Slaughter today runs the University of Maryland’s Uncrewed Aircraft Systems Research and Operations Center (UROC), a research and development site for drone technology. Part of the A. James Clark School of Engineering, the center occupies a hangar at the St. Mary's County Regional Airport, where it builds and tests its gear.

Last year, Slaughter found himself chatting with an Eastern Shore doctor, who relayed a story of two Smith Island residents who ran out of essential medicines during a freeze—including insulin for a diabetic—prompting the state to dispatch a helicopter. Slaughter realized it would have been the perfect job for a drone.

“That helicopter costs thousands of dollars an hour to operate when you consider fuel, maintenance, flight crew and ground crew,” Slaughter said.

He submitted a proposal in partnership with the Maryland Department of Planning outlining a drone operation that would accelerate medical shipments to and from Smith Island and also explore other benefits to rural citizens. Last month, his efforts were rewarded with a $1.76 million U.S. Department of Transportation grant.

"All Marylanders deserve equitable access to health care and health care resources," Gov. Wes Moore said as he announced the pilot. "This funding will strengthen our capacity to support our rural communities and presents an important opportunity to learn more about how enhanced technology can be deployed to serve those in need.”

Already, Amazon and Walmart are piloting drone-delivery projects in Texas and elsewhere with permission from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Large health care systems like the Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic are experimenting with medical drops, and UROC staff helped make history in 2019 when they teamed up with University of Maryland Medical Center physicians to use a drone to fly a donated kidney to a patient for transplant. Still, routine deliveries in remote areas are uncommon, Slaughter said.

That’s poised to change. Currently, the FAA bars people from flying unmanned aircraft beyond their line of sight. In the coming months, however, the agency is set to propose a rule change eliminating that restriction. The move will help usher in a new aviation revolution, said Slaughter. In the near future, drones equipped with radio-linked control systems will make low-altitude household deliveries, easing the supply chain, eliminating traffic delays, curbing emissions and creating jobs, Slaughter predicted. Air taxis, meanwhile, will carry short-hop passengers—possibly as early as 2026—while law enforcement and emergency services will add airborne tools to service calls.

Ultimately, Slaughter hopes to turn the entire Chesapeake Bay area into a drone-delivery hub that transcends health care, with routine commercial travel across the bay.

The timeline for the Smith Island project was designed to coincide with the FAA’s rule change, which is expected to take effect in early 2026. After a private contractor is recruited to build and pilot the uncrewed aircraft, Slaughter’s team will spend several months testing the technology within sight of Crisfield before the drones start venturing across the bay.

For Janet Tyler, EMT captain for the Smith Island volunteer firefighters, the program can’t come soon enough.

“If someone gets sick in the afternoon and misses the ferry, they have to wait another 24 hours to get their prescription,” she said, describing the current situation.

Moreover, drones would expedite blood-sample deliveries. “Twenty-four hours can be the difference between a hospital stay and an easy fix,” Tyler said, using COVID antiviral therapy as an example.

Drone drops would also help military veterans on the island, who can’t just get drugs brought from Crisfield by ferry, Tyler explained; their military health plans require that they travel to approved pharmacies farther from home. “If they’re sick, they have to use public transportation and be around everybody just to get medicine,” she said.

Slaughter’s vision is aligned with a similar medical-drop pilot program being developed for Virginia’s Tangier Island, 11 miles south. His team is already sharing development plans with Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va.

UMD Eastern Shore’s Department of Engineering and Aviation Science, which runs a professional pilot program, will serve as a partner, as will its School of Pharmacy. Salisbury-based TidalHealth will coordinate with Smith Island patients.

Islanders are ready to embrace the technology if it helps them carry on with their lives in an isolated but idyllic setting, Somers said: “This is the future and we’re happy to be part of it.”