The future of medicine was up in the air Wednesday, but in a good way.

Swiss company Matternet began testing its delivery drones in Raleigh in a program operated by the North Carolina Department of Transportation and authorized by the Federal Aviation Administration.

“We have just witnessed package delivery over people, and that is a big step,” said Basil Yap, with the North Carolina Department of Transportation.

Drones delivering vials of water launched from WakeMed Medical Park, and landed at the main hospital building across the street. It was only a 1,300-foot flight, but a move that made history.

“It has really been fascinating to see this all come together,” Dr. Stuart Ginn, with WakeMed Innovations.

It took hospital leaders, the DOT, FAA and others to make it happen. The drone delivery could change how medical treatment is delivered.

“It takes a lot of stuff to take care of patients,” Ginn said.

And, in some cases, transporting things like blood samples can take as long as two hours. Ginn said drones would change that dramatically.

“(They) really open up a lot of operational possibilities for us, and (this) obviously changes the sort of cost dynamic as well,” he said.

One of the hurdles was convincing the FAA it could be done safely over people and traffic – something not currently allowed by the agency — and that the drone would not collide with anything else in the air.

“We can see where other aircraft are flying all around Raleigh, and so that helps us make decisions on when to launch our drone and when not to,” Yap said.

There are still some hurdles to clear, piloting a drone out of line of sight and carrying hazardous materials in the air are also against current FAA regulations.

In the next two years, WakeMed hopes to move medical material by drone to other facilities in a 12-mile radius.

“We anticipate this being a usable system, not just a demo system,” Ginn said.

NCDOT will hold a public meeting Thursday from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the Perry Health Sciences campus at Wake Tech Community College to offer information about the drone program and obtain feedback.