It was the absence of an efficient ambulance service that resulted in Ravjot Singh Arora losing his grandfather to a heart attack at his East Delhi residence in 2010. Frantic calls to hospitals and the government ambulance service yielded little relief, recalls Arora of the incident.

Arora is co-founder of LifeHover, and his tragic experience is a common thread that links founders of many app-based healthcare aggregation start-ups, like his, operating to get ambulance and critical care services to your doorsteps, faster.

Explaining how it works, Pranav Bajaj, co-founder of Delhi-based LifeHover says, “We have tied up with 450 private ambulance providers, a majority of whom have fleets of 10-15 ambulances. Our app enables customers to track an ambulance once it is booked.”

The model

The modus operandi is similar across the app-based providers, as they engage ambulance drivers, provide them with app-based solutions, standardised prices based on market surveys and in some cases, train the crews as well.

Bengaluru-based iRelief has alliances with 150 ambulance providers, 17 blood banks and two home-care providers across Karnataka. Shujath Pasha, CEO of iRelief, says, “Our prices are 20-25 per cent lower than market rates, and our turnaround time (time taken to respond to a call) is much better. We are now working to reduce our turnaround time to under seven minutes.”

Delhi-based Amber Health has tie-ups with AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Sciences), MAX and Apollo. Its co-founder Vinayak Dalmia says Amber’s cloud-based dashboard provides hospitals with information of the location, medical details and past records of the incoming patient.

Jaimon Jose of Uber-backed Ambee is looking at an app for customers within 12 months. “The leads we provide attract ambulance drivers who are willing to come under our umbrella. Currently, we get 13 per cent emergency pick-up and 87 per cent scheduled pick-up bookings through our website and phone-based booking service (in Hyderabad).”

Seema, a resident of Khar in Mumbai, has a son who suffers from epileptic seizures, and has often needed ambulances, but is concerned over the quality of ambulance services, particularly the crew’s training and attitude. “Many drivers are not well-versed with pick-up locations. If these issues can be overcome, many patients will use them,” she says.

Rita Savla of RADHEE Disaster and Education Foundation says emergency services are an unregulated and unorganised sector. Calling for urgent regulatory oversight of this segment, she says, “Nobody can hold ambulance drivers to account especially when lives are lost because of their mistake.” Besides, she alleges, ambulances with faulty instruments are often sent for pick-ups.”

Sampat, an ambulance driver, is similarly skeptical. “Services like 108, 1252 and 1098 came up, but lost steam eventually,” he observes. Branded ambulance services shouldn’t mean higher prices, he says. Everyone starts off well, but the systems begin to slacken, he adds.

There is a clear indication that a demand for efficient ambulance services exists, but service providers haven’t yet found a workable model.

(The writer is an intern with BusinessLine.)

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