To visit the official Emergency Dispatch Africa website, go to: www.emergencydispatchafrica.com
In 2014, we were brought on to help solve a critical problem for our partner, Nordic Medical Centre (NMC). As a newly founded hospital in Addis Ababa (est. 2012), NMC had become one of Ethiopia’s leading facilities for emergency and critical care medical services. The problem was that a critical part of emergency medical care, the initial emergency response, was unavailable in the country.
A country with a population of over 107 million people, Ethiopia does not have a 911-type centralized EMS dispatch centre or the infrastructure in place to provide relatively quick emergency services. In a country where street names are limited, it becomes nearly impossible to accurately describe the location of an emergency. Along with unreliable infrastructure, including frequent power outages, road closures, and cellular data network outages, it would be impossible to simply import an EMS system from another nation into this fluctuating environment.
Our EMS system — in operation at NMC since 2015 — is specifically designed for Ethiopia’s unique challenges. With time playing a critical role in any emergency response, having the ability to be immediately located could be the difference between life and death.
To accompany our EMS system, we also created the necessary operational protocols, and our Implementation Team (comprised of EMS operations experts, paramedics, etc) provided the necessary training for the local staff utilizing the system.
If the project succeeded, we would also be able to use that experience to help the Ethiopian government develop their own official National EMS capability.
At the press of a button, the user is connected to the Emergency Call Centre, while their exact position is seamlessly sent in the background. Instead of wasting time trying to explain their location, the user is immediately receiving medical help over the phone, and can rest assured that the ambulance will be able to find them.
All our ambulances are equipped with state-of-the-art tablets, in constant connection with the cloud, and thus the Emergency Call Centre. Our paramedics receive the exact location of the user, and are shown the fastest way to get to the user. Key information collected by the dispatcher is also being shared in real-time to our paramedics. This ensures our paramedics are fully prepared to help the user as soon as they arrive on-site.
The dispatcher automatically receives the user’s location and can one-click dispatch an ambulance before they’ve even said hello! All while automatically passing on key details from the call in real-time to paramedics. This significantly decreases the amount of multitasking, allowing them to focus on what’s most important - helping the person in need.
Built specifically for the Ethiopian environment, our system still functions when others would fail. No power? No problem. No data (3G/4G)? We have a backup plan for that. Specifically designed with resilience in mind.
While traditional 911 services run into many difficulties when trying to locate mobile phone calls, our system thrives on it. We pinpoint the exact location of users, saving minutes when they matter most.
Scalable by nature, our fleet management system allows for unlimited ambulances and paramedics, along with detailed logs and stats for every individual and team.
By tracking and storing all our data, we build a data treasure trove to be mined. Learning from that data, makes for a smarter system. From dispatching efficiency and ambulance response times, to tracking both individuals and teams, we look to optimize all parts of the system.
We designed everything to be easy and intuitive for users. We've gotten operators who've never used computers before, using it in minutes. Enough said.
This means, if power goes out, we can move our command centre as easily as picking up a laptop and going. We’ve run the dispatching command centre from the back of a van on a dirt road in Africa, using 1 cellphone. Trust me, you can go anywhere.
By connecting our system to internal patient management systems in hospitals, both operators and paramedics already have life-saving information specific to the caller at their fingertips.
Built specifically for the Ethiopian environment, our system still functions when others would fail. No power? No problem. No data (3G/4G)? We have a backup plan for that. Specifically designed with resilience in mind.
While traditional 911 services run into many difficulties when trying to locate mobile phone calls, our system thrives on it. We pinpoint the exact location of users, saving minutes when they matter most.
Scalable by nature, our fleet management system allows for unlimited ambulances and paramedics, along with detailed logs and stats for every individual and team.
By tracking and storing all our data, we build a data treasure trove to be mined. Learning from that data, makes for a smarter system. From dispatching efficiency and ambulance response times, to tracking both individuals and teams, we look to optimize all parts of the system.
We designed everything to be easy and intuitive for users. We've gotten operators who've never used computers before, using it in minutes. Enough said.
This means, if power goes out, we can move our command centre as easily as picking up a laptop and going. We’ve run the dispatching command centre from the back of a van on a dirt road in Africa, using 1 cellphone. Trust me, you can go anywhere.
By connecting our system to internal patient management systems in hospitals, both operators and paramedics already have life-saving information specific to the caller at their fingertips.
We believe in empowering local communities to run their own emergency medical services. We provide them with an EMS capability - including the technology, the processes, and the initial training and monitoring.
Having successfully operationalized Ethiopia’s first full-circle EMS system, along with thorough testing in a pilot project over the last 3 years, we are looking to expand our life-saving impact within Ethiopia, as well as start expanding into other developing regions in Africa. There are currently over 900 million people living in Sub-Saharan Africa without proper emergency medical services. We dream of providing any community in developing regions, from rural to urban, the capability to establish their own Emergency Medical Services, and save lives along the way.
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