Beacon Aid - Aiding in saving lives!

Beacon Aid,India's first one-stop application that allows a person in an emergency to connect to a nearby hospital for immediate attention,acting as an intermediate connection between the hospital and user

As per the statistics available, a total of approx. 2 lakh emergency calls are made every single day in India out of which only 20-25% receive immediate medical attention leaving behind 75-80% or 1,60,000 of the patients either unattended or getting late medical care. This count is only for the government hospitals. After analyzing the broad data available, we calculated that a total of 1,92,000 (approx. 2 lakh calls) calls are made a day including both private & public sector health centers.

Centralized healthcare numbers do exist, however, due to the heavy number of requests already lined up, people are sometimes unable to connect to the hospital or ambulance service.
Additionally, there is absolutely no way a person can contact a private hospital unless the person has the specific number of their hospital. 

An incident that occurred in my family personally served as the inspiration for our solution. About 2 years back, one of our team member's grandmother passed away due to delays in access to the ambulance service. She complained of uneasiness and difficulty in breathing  and considering her age, we thought it was necessary to get her admitted as soon as possible. We did have access to the centralised healthcare numbers but weren't able to connect to the hospital.  

In this delay, we couldn't get my grandma to the hospital in time and she passed away. Our team was formed after this incident took place because every team member understood the gravity of the incident.

WHAT WOULD YOU PREFER? 

Trying to connect to a single hospital by finding and then dialing their numbers
OR
Being able to connect to multiple hospitals at once by just pressing a button, having the sense of security that there is more than one option.

Beacon Aid is India's first one-stop app that allows a person in an emergency to connect to a nearby hospital for immediate attention and aid, acting as an intermediate connection between the hospital and the user! 

• It utilises an innovative technology platform that works as a single point of contact.

• Clean user experience - The experience for the users will be minimal, seamless and streamlined for easier procedures. 

• Uses Global Positioning Systems (GPS) for precise tracking.

• Operates as a dual-partnership model and acts as a referral system for hospitals.

• Not location centric

• Free for users

Functionality - 

• Sign Up
• Enter basic details, health problems, prefered hospital nearest to the house.

During an emergency, a family member can press the emergency button in the app or press the start button of the phone twice after which - 

1. An emergency request is sent to multiple hospitals (the preferred hospitals) at once

2. The hospital has the ability to accept or reject the request based on the availability of emergency beds which can be viewed on their dashboard which our software is offering.

3. If rejected, there are other hospitals who are there to accept. 

4. If accepted, the request is assigned to the hospital and an automatic dispatch request is sent to the ambulance with the user coordinates.
   
   

   

 In an emergency situation, two broad scenarios can be encountered, 

1. User not at home with other family members

2. No hospital accepts the user

We have a mechanism to tackle these scenarios which is elaborated in the next question. 

Market Size - 
Total Addressable Market - 90 Crore population (who have access to smartphones)
Service Addressable Market - 74 Crore population (who seek proper medical attention)
Service obtainable Market - 7 Crore population (who call for service for medical assistance)

Socio-Economic Factors
We don’t charge a single rupee from the user. Our business model is to charge the hospitals to which the users are redirected. So our app / product is not specific to any section of the society nor is it expensive for low income groups (since it is free).

Location
The best part of our product is that it is not location-centric i.e it is not restricted to a specific region of the country. Anyone in an emergency, present anywhere in the country, can use the app provided that the hospital nearby can provide immediate attention.

In an emergency situation, two broad scenarios can be encountered, 

1. User not at home with other family members

• Though not shown in the actual software, there is a section in the actual app where an anonymous person can file a request to the nearest hospital from his/her app for the person in need (since the user is not at his/her house which is near the preferred hospital they had entered at the time of profile updation). The only limitation here is that the hospital won’t be able to judge whether it is a hoax call or a legitimate one but the solution to that is to make that a punishable offence and ban the anonymous person requesting the ambulance from using the app. 

2. No hospital accepts the user

• While there is a 99% success rate that on sending an emergency request to a nearby Hospital, one of them would accept it. But taking a scenario where none of the preferred hospitals accept the request, the request would then start to bounce to hospitals within 7 Km and go on till the hospital in the 15 Km range.

• In the future, we will launch our own fleet of ambulances, which will only be used in
  a) Inaccessible areas,
  b) When no hospital accepts a user’s emergency request,
  c) Where reaching the nearest hospital takes time.
  

To bring this idea to life, we would need -
1) Website coding - The app was programmed using PHP (92.0%), Javascript (3.6%) and Hash (4.4%) and is functional/operating. It is hosted on a hosting service too. You can view the website demonstration demo here - 

Github Repository

Demonstration Video

2) Financial details and business details
3) Ex. communication and public relations (to get hospitals to partner)

4) Contacts in big hospitals (to initiate initial partnering) - We have got in touch with a few doctors in AIIMS and have their support in this solution. We would be having tests in the hospital in a few months.  We have developed the software for the hospitals, ambulance service as well as for the user.
5) Contacts in companies who would like to invest in this
6) Marketing

By the end of 2023, we intend to complete our first stage or plan of action, which is to penetrate the cities or Tier 1 level. We plan to have a scalable application ready by the end of the year to serve more than a million users living in metropolitan cities and connecting them successfully to the hospitals. Since our application also involves the hospitals, we aim to boost and maximize the number of partnerships we have with the hospitals located in these cities.  

Financial Breakdown

We spoke with Dr. Ravindra Srivastava, a neurosurgean at prestigious institution AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi), to better grasp the scope of the issue. He concurred that it was a serious issue that needed to be resolved. He shared how he had witnessed such incidents take place and how he hoped there was a way to fix it. 

After devising a solution and developing the application, we shared it with him and he gave us praise for our efforts. He truly feels that this could help in saving atleast a few lives, if not all.

We feel the problem exists and this is a humble effort from teenagers to improve the accessibility of healthcare services.

A one-stop app that utilises an innovative technology platform that works as a single point of contact.

• It is one-of-a-kind service and the first ever to exist in the market and will be so for the next few years.

• Clean user experience - The experience for the users will be minimal, seamless and streamlined for easier procedures. The design and information architecture makes the interface user-friendly and easy to navigate.

• Uses Global Positioning Systems (GPS) for precise tracking. 

  Like other on-demand delivery startups, Beacon Aid has also integrated the Google Maps API which lets the customers know where the ambulance is and the amount of time it will take for it to reach their home.

• Operates as a dual-partnership model and acts as a referral system for hospitals. This is basically a referral system for hospitals, where we as a third party are referring patients to their hospital. Since this kind of a system already exists, we are not trying to change a lifestyle i.e the way of working, but rather overlapping our working on top of the system already built. 

  This would benefit the hospitals who would receive more hospitalisations from customers using the Beacon Aid app.

• Not location centric

• Free for users

Our plans for this and the consecutive year is to - 

• Integrate the app into smart watches like Fitbit to reduce reliance on smartphones.

• Devise a compact device such as a watch/pendant where the user can press the emergency button making it easier to operate it. This device will be useful for the elderly people living alone.

• Launch our our own fleet of ambulance which will only (and only) be used in
  a) inaccessible areas
  b) in cases when no hospital accepts a user’s emergency request
  c) where reaching the nearest hospital takes time.

•  By the end of 2023, we intend to complete our first stage or plan of action, which is to penetrate the cities or Tier 1 level. 

• We plan to come up with a beta version of the application which can serve about a million users and create a brand value for people to trust that the service provided is of the same quality that they would find otherwise.

Main technology - Software and Mobile Applications

We plan to integrate Machine Learning and Internet of Things to improve the efficacy of the application and to serve a million users.

Although we have developed and programmed an application for hospitals, users, and the ambulance service, we have only evaluated the solution's effectiveness on a small scale right now. 
However, by the end of 2023, we intend to complete our first stage or plan of action, which is to penetrate the cities or Tier 1 level. We plan to have a scalable application ready by the end of the year to serve more than a million users living in metropolitan cities and connecting them successfully to the hospitals. Since our application also involves the hospitals, We seek to increase and optimise the number of collaborations we have with the hospitals in these cities.

Our mission is to centralise the private sector hospitals, growing the hospital base as much as possible and enhancing the public sector medical services

The biggest challenge we would have to overcome is getting users to use our application and convincing them that it is groundbreaking and has the potential to transform the way healthcare services are provided. It would take considerable time to build their trust in our services.

Growth Strategy

Our business will be set up in 4 stages.

Stage 1 includes partnering with private sector hospitals to set up our softwares in their existing management system. Simultaneously, using our marketing strategies we plan to interest the urban market in our concept and since the app is already free and is also a necessary one, capturing a major portion of the urban market would not be a problem.

Stage 2 includes getting in talks with government ministries to launch the same concept for public sector hospitals. At this stage, we plan to extend this concept to the low-income groups living in the urban areas who cannot afford the fees charged in private hospitals. We do not charge either the patient or the hospital at this stage.

Stage 3 includes launching our own fleet of ambulances or outsourcing it to other private ambulance service agencies in the urban market using the profits generated from Stage 1. The fleet to be launched will only be on a small scale and that too in areas where either reaching the nearest hospital takes time or in areas where there are numerous high emergency requests.

Stage 4 includes penetrating the rural areas/villages where the transport will be carried out using our in-house ambulance service.

NOTE: A minimal transportation fee is charged wherever the Beacon Aid ambulance service comes into play.

Marketing Plan

Our marketing plan includes social media awareness; which consists of setting up Instagram and Facebook advertisements showing case studies of previous incidents where patients were not able to get medical attention because they were unable to connect to hospitals. Our other two major marketing strategies include youtube video demonstrations and organizing hospital campaigns for user awareness. Additionally, Paid advertising on Facebook and Google Adwords will also be done. We also aim to enhance our SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).

This is basically a referral system for hospitals where we as a third party are referring patients to their hospital. Since this kind of a system already exists, we are not trying to change a lifestyle i.e the way of working, but rather overlapping our working on top of the system already built.

Revenue Structure

All the logistics will be handled by the hospitals only, like ambulances, so our cost (on multiple grounds) will be very less. 

User Side: We are not charging a single rupee from the users, enabling patients from all the sections of the society to access it. 

Hospital Side: Our revenue will be generated from the commission which will be charged on the bill of the patient generated by the hospital. After a thorough research, we decided that our commission shall be 10%. 

Example: 

Taking 10% commission as an example, we mentioned that a total of 1,92,000 emergency calls are made each day. Let’s assume the lower limit, i.e only 5% of the total emergency requests (1,92,000) are made using our system, which will result in a total of 9,600 requests. Based on a report, private hospitals charge approximately ₹7,000. So 10% commission of ₹7,000 equals ₹700. This will make our total revenue equal (₹700 x 9,600) or ₹67,20,000.