Helpfie bystander Smart First Aid Mobile app, Paramedic Smart EMS app

We harness technology to keep pace with the demands for prehospital care. The Helpfie Smart First Aid application provides the lay public with easy to follow ultra-brief life-saving digital resources. The Helpfie Smart EMS (Emergency Medical Services) application provides a handy reference checklist for paramedics and EMTs (Emergency Medical Technicians).

Esther Ndungu, CEO with a background in technology consulting for healthcare and public sector clients.

Although a bystander may very well be a medical emergency victim's best chance of survival, there is a growing proficiency gap in bystander preparedness to provide life-saving care in a medical emergency. An African Federation of Emergency Medicine study noted that 83% of Kenyans are quite clueless about what to do in a medical emergency and there is a growing need for new EMTs (Emergency Medical Technicians) and Paramedics to hit the ground running in their delivery of prehospital care and in their mastery of Emergency Medical Service protocols. Covid-19 creates a perfect storm for pre-hospital care. With Kenya's lay public being a little more guarded to make what used to be a no brainer trip to the hospital for fear of catching Covid and for fear breaking the curfew. Along with an increased demand on new EMTs and Paramedics to adhere to EMS protocols while delivering prehospital care.

We provide business to business (B2B) digital smart first aid resources to equip the workforce with life saving first aid and COVID-sensitization information. We review workplace safety metrics from the World Health Organization and the International Labor Organization to identify those sectors that are the worst workplace accident offenders e.g., the agricultural, construction and mining sector. We work with entities in these sectors to provide innovative life saving strategies to keep their workforce safe.

We work with ambulance companies and local government entities to equip their EMTs and Paramedics with a handy checklist to serve as a reference guide and to improve EMS Protocol adherence.

We work with marginalized communities and members of the public who’ve been disenfranchised by a humanitarian crisis to empower them with life saving digital first aid and EMS solutions

We enter into a reseller agreement with telecom providers and healthcare training entities to offer business to customer (B2C) digital smart first aid resources to complement their ongoing initiatives.

We use grants to provide free access to the platform to marginalized communities. We also partner with local health authorities and telecommunications provider and non-profits to provide country-wide access to our platform. Our blogs https://smartfirstaid.medium.com and social media handles (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Linkedin) provides free life saving tips, key prehospital care insights based on academic, science-based, peer-reviewed publications and industry reports. Our video and asset library content is shared on our website blogs and social media handles to help distill complex topics that a lay person can easily understand. The Smart First Aid application is curated for a 5th Grade reading level and contains short, easy to follow step by step illustrations delivered using voice prompts to make it easy to follow along. We conduct ongoing community outreach initiatives to raise awareness on first aid and prehospital care, conduct crowdsourcing campaigns to track down safety resources and work with schools to equip teaching and non-teaching staff and student community on basic first aid. We also work with placement bureaus to equip casual workers with life saving first aid skills.

According to this report, the number of preventable deaths from unintended incidents is rising while enrollment in traditional first aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training has taken a downward plunge.

The report points to growing evidence showing that confirms that the use of ultra-brief training solutions significantly improves cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) responsiveness. Similarly,  self-directed, mobile CPR training with feedback mechanisms have been shown to improve CPR chest compression performance, while step-by-step poster-like illustrations have the potential to reach a lot more people at a fraction of the cost

Innovative mobile technology solutions that provide community members with access to basic emergency information are needed to educate and empower people with critical life-saving interventions. Helpfie harnesses innovative mobile technologies to empower the lay public with life saving interventions and to equip emergency professionals with an Emergency Medical Services (EMS) protocol checklist. 

Helpfie's training approach helps keep pace with the growing demands for pre-hospital care in countries like Kenya where an African Federation of Emergency Medicine - AFEM Study found that 92% of surviving patients did not receive medical interventions before arrival at the hospital. 

Impact Measures: Conduct User surveys to capture qualitative assessment to determine whether our solutions provide easily accessible and timely onsite urgent/emergent interventions. We can utilize an Uber-like rating system to determine whether the information presented on the app made the delivery of emergency medical care faster. Gather testimonials about changes in overall health outcomes since downloading the app and verify if they can attribute positive health outcomes from app use.

Scale up metrics: Review user adoption and retention metrics to determine if our user base is growing. Review unique user profiles created, active users, app personas, user affiliations, key demographics, etc

Sustainability metrics: Evaluate the financial sustainability model by calculating revenue streams generated from users, usage metrics from integration partners (Ambulance companies) and run this against the cost of user acquisition and app maintenance

We have testimonials posted on the reviews section of www.Helpfie.com. We applied and won a whitebox.go.ke grant to equip marginalized communities with digital first aid resources. We are working with Groots Kenya, a grassroots women organization to equip 15 women-led community-based groups (CBOs) and Self Help Groups (SHG) in marginalized communities with digital life saving skills that are critical in harsh rural settings without close proximity to health facilities and in hazardous working and living environments (e.g., mining communities, snake infested areas, etc) where the need for life saving skills is greatest.

We are working with Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) Health Emergencies Department to provide a Smart Emergency Medical Services checklist to serve as a handy reference tool for Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) and Paramedics responding to county-wide emergencies in their fleet of roughly 20 NMS ambulances.

We are running analytics to track down user engagement levels and share user feedback to Health and Wellness Administrators at firms where we have a B2B relationship to inform subscription renewal decisions.

We are in talks with Kenya's Ministry of Health to provide the Smart First Aid application to Kenyans for a free month trial to assist with COVID-19 sensitization efforts.