Have to do my little due diligence to popularise the 108 Emergency Response service of Satyam's not-for-profit Emergency Management Research Institute group, launched recently across Andhra Pradesh.
We had a talk at ISB by Mr. Venkat Chengavalli, CEO, EMRI, who has taken the 911 system and improved it to suit hub-and-spoke instead of the US multi-center operation. The topic of the talk was "Transformation of emergency management with comments on entrepreneurship in the Non profit/healthcare sector". The most amazing thing was his expertise in medical emergencies although he was an engineer by education and profession till late. Brilliant ideas presented in simple words and his down-to-earth simplicity reminded me of Mr. K Pandirajan, MD, Ma Foi, who was here at the Career Perspective seminar during Pre-terms.
The goal is to respond withing 2 rings to every call and to ensure medical emergencies are serviced within 30 minutes (the nearest ambulance is tracked using GIS). EMRI has 70 ambulances now. It takes care of paperwork in accident cases too. Police emergencies are relayed to nearest police control room. India has peculiar problems: 1) City road traffic 2) Address complexities 3) Scarcity of good hospitals. "What if the emergency caller is affluent and only wants to go to the Apollo Hospital which is an hour away, while there is another emergency that the van needs to attend to immediately?" asked Mr. Venkat. He went on to relate some life-saving stories and some funny anecdotes from the EMRI call-centre.
The business model has worked quite well. It has saved more than 3000 lives since its start earlier this year. It's free for all. Where will revenues come from then? By becoming Robinhood. Charge the rich emergency callers for the ambulance services, keep it free for the poor.
Some links below ... and for all emergencies in Andhra Pradesh please
DIAL 108
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