Now, an app to provide emergency health care, connect people with nearest hospital

The app will also alert the user about the 108 — free ambulance facility — under the state government.

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The cloud platform has a vision to expand in India by 2018. It is set to launch in Punjab in October this year as a pilot project following which Mumbai will be targeted.

According to Sweta Mangal, co-founder of MUrgency, the app will be available on IOS and Android mobile software through which a patient in any medical emergency can call for help.

“We are enrolling private hospitals, nursing homes, ambulances and individuals such as doctors and para-medics. Once a distress call is sent from a mobile handset, it will be relayed to every enrolled institution within a five km radius through an alert beep,” Mangal said. Just like the radio taxi apps, the responder, which in this case is the doctor or the hospital, can press the ‘accept’ button when the alert sounds, following which the alert beep will go off from all other devices.

The MUrgency has already field tested the app in Israel, Dubai and Punjab and found that the average response time could be shot down from 8-12 minutes to 2.54 minutes. In the next 12 months, the application will cover Mumbai and the rest of India.

In Chandigarh, 70 hospitals, individuals and nursing homes have already been enrolled.

The MUrgency, launched by San Francisco-based company MUrgency Inc, will enroll only in private institutions in its first phase. In its second phase, attempts to rope in public services such as ‘108’ ambulance and public hospitals will be made.

The app will, however, have a shortcoming. In case no one responds within 60 seconds, the patient will be sent a message about the same.
“No hospital will be made liable to accept each alert in their jurisdiction,” Mandal said.

MUrgency’s founder and CEO Shaffi Mather said, “It is well known that timely medical assistance is the most critical factor in saving lives. Unfortunately, it is not readily available to 90 per cent of the world’s population. It is our mission to make fast emergency medical assistance available through the mobile phone to anyone, anytime, anywhere across the world by 2020 with just one tap on your phone.”

tabassum.barnagarwala
@expressindia.com