India, July 28 -- Until recently, India had no equivalent of the 911 service, not even for medical emergencies. In the US, it is a unified number that one can call for any emergency assistance. However, closer to home, people mainly depend on traditional ambulance services, a fragmented market dominated by below-par operators who do not follow standardised regulatory or medical protocols. In addition, critical care in such situations can be severely impacted due to insufficient fleets, lack of in-transit equipment for patient stabilisation and the absence of qualified paramedics who can be life-savers.

Consider this. When it comes to emergency medical services (EMS) in India, there is just one ambulance for around 65K people, with at lea...