Ambulances

Life without this:

Mumbai is a city of 16 million people, yet it lacks any reliable ambulance or emergency medical response service. People use autorickshaws, private cars, or van “ambulances” that have no medical equipment or trained technicians to take patients to the hospital. More often than not, these ambulances function only as hearses. The poor suffer disproportionately from the lack of these services because they face greater transportation challenges but have lesser means to pay.

Problems solved:

1298’s focus is on providing service for all. Its business model uses a sliding price scale driven by ability to pay, which is determined by the kind of hospital to which patients choose to be taken. Those who are admitted to general wards of a Government Hospital, ultimately the poorest patients, are given a subsidized rate of 50%. 15-20% of the services are offered at subsidized rates or are free of cost. The ambulances are controlled by a state-of-the-art call centre available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week that identifies the ambulance closest to an emergency and directs the ambulance team. 1298 has also developed training programs, certified by the American Heart Association and New York Presbyterian Hospital, to train its own emergency care doctors and technicians.

Inventor: Shaffi Mather, Founder of 1298

Year Invented: 2007