The hope of disorganized abundance
There’s an abundance of ambulances in Nairobi, Kenya — 40% above WHO’s recommended rate. Still, ambulances arrive at emergency scenes hours delayed — in 2015, a five hour wait was fatal for a three-month old boy. Without a centralized emergency command, over 50 private ambulance companies popped up in the city and inefficiencies abound. To get help, callers rotate through dozens of numbers before connecting with an available crew, followed by a 162 minute wait time.
Flare, a tech startup, launched “Rescue” app, an uber-like service that allows “patients or hospitals to see available ambulance options and request help quickly.” It shares users’ location and tracks ambulances around the city ensuring drastically shorter response times — 15 minutes. Triage performed sooner equates to lives being saved.
In urbanizing cities where problems aren’t sourced from a lack of resources, but rather a disorganized abundance, solutions can be derived from optimization models of distribution. Using technology to track services or resources with real-time data and optimizing viable options for citizens based on location (or other important parameters) would eliminate inefficiencies and confusion for both users and providers.
Applying tech as a centralizing platform can be beneficial in response to fires, natural disasters, and even surplus of local goods like crops or building materials. Aggregating available resources on a map and incorporating traffic data can provide accurate time estimates for when help will be on the way. The scalability offers a powerful tool to connect solutions to public needs.
https://qz.com/africa/780364/a-startup-in-kenya-is-launching-uber-for-ambulances/
