iResponder app- for increased bystander emergency response.

In 2022 Nigeria's population as reported by NBS has risen from 120 million at the last census to 200  million Nigerians with about 130 million of this population living below the poverty line. With the increase in poverty, it is equally known that there is an increase towards most Nigerians being unable to access some of the basic services they have rights to especially the right to basic healthcare and emergency response.

Every year, over 39,000 Nigerians involved in road crashes do not survive, in the 2018 Global Status Report on Road Safety, the World Health Organization(WHO) estimated road traffic fatalities in Nigeria at 39,802 while the estimated rate per 100,000 stood at 21.4. Increase stat on mortality from current issues of banditry, insurgency, outbreaks, floods and fire incidents have translated into more morbidity and mortality. While such incidents have people who witness them at the scene of the incident but most times are oblivion of what to do at the time, or how to assist these accident victims due to lack of emergency skills.

In addition to this, the ratio of ambulance service to city population is negative as there are not enough ambulances to attend to cases of emergencies when called upon.

I-responder mobile application is a fast and efficient First Responders mobile technology which is human-centred and enables a trained First Responder to receive an emergency alert/notification and immediately initiate a lifesaving treatment prior to the arrival of professional emergency responders. I-responder has features such as E-learning (First Aid), Toll-Free calls, Requests for Ambulance, Call FRSC, Responder Profile, Ambulance Registration, Responders forum, Report an emergency/accident, Become a First Responder, Call for Medical Intervention, Request for First Responder, Call a First Responder and others. The app will run on both IOS and Android phones. The I-responder mobile app is the first of its kind for accident and emergency healthcare needs in Nigeria. It will provide everyone with an opportunity to reach out to trained first responders who are very close to the scene of the accident to come and provide first aid to the accident victims.

Beneficiaries (users)of the app who in the scenes of emergencies are bystanders can also connect to trained first responders via the requested feature detailing information from the scene of the incident. The iResponder app features allow the use of emergency USSD codes for most users who do not have access to internet phones.

Youth – Youth will include persons between the ages of 15-35 years (we currently have students aged 13 and above trained as part of our First responders). In Nigeria, the youths account for over 70% of the population in the 200+ million total population and over 80% of those trained by us as emergency responders are youths. We will therefore leverage this as we believe they also make more bystanders. The target is to ensure that a lot of the youth begin to have a life-saving mentality and use these skills in cases of emergencies.

Marginalized groups (persons with disabilities, women, Indigent/vulnerable people who cannot afford basic medical care): We will target creating awareness among women through the first responder training. Women usually find themselves taking care of their families and this extends to the workplace, schools etc. women can be better prepared for emergencies, with basic first responder knowledge. 65% of our target reach will focus on women. Persons with Disabilities are already faced with a challenging life due to their physical disability, which usually results to them being marginalized. In the case of an emergency, persons’ with disabilities can save lives if they have the knowledge of what to do, hence there is a need to reach out to them.

Emergency/ Medical Personnel/Social workers: These are personnel that find themselves in the front line. There is a need to ensure that these personnel are equipped as first responders and can train others under them or in their unit.

Before our (Health Emergency Initiative)team came up with this solution, it started with standing as next of kin for road traffic accident victims who are most times unconscious and by hospital demands can’t access medical care, this was done by providing the initial funds they require to access treatment in order to resuscitate them. While serving these target populations and upon further discussion we understood that so many lives long trauma and mortalities if we have had accident victims developed.

Our daily interaction with social workers has exposed the need to introduce this solution to the market as there are now increased cases of accidents from security issues, hearts attacks and also domestic accidents, the system now feels the need to have persons have basic first aid knowledge to apply during emergencies.

We have effectively trained over 5000 first responders till date while setting up scalable impact measurement model to enable us to monitor the impact of project delivery. Last year we extended our model towards improving the emergency system in Nigeria by partnering with Lay First Responders International Michigan to carry out pilot training for 330 Lay First Responders; this is aimed at alignment with the UN Decade of Action to reduce the number of deaths associated with road traffic accidents by 50% by 2030. The program delivery experienced a 90% success with an impact record of lives saved as a result of the response by a Lay First Responder trained. Our Lay First Responders were selected from communities which contribute towards daily interaction with major and minor roads such as transporters, drivers, dispatch riders etc. We further collaborated with the National agency in charge of road safety names Federal Road Safety, Nigeria to increase the effectiveness of program implementation.

Our core project team includes

Paschal Achunine- Executive Director, HEI

Chika Nnadi-Senior Project Lead

The iResponder app carries features that are fully developed with ideas steaming from our existing emergency response training with members of the public. Its added feature includes self-paced e-learning courses that anyone can take.

Thus far, we have trained over 5000+ First responders that include medical personnel, university and secondary school graduates, road safety officers, fire service agents, corporates individuals, military agents

Market fit in

Human Resources

Technology -Software update and development

Community Buy-in- Unwillingness by individuals to pay for first responder training – people are unwilling to pay for the training by themselves. As a result, we usually reach out to corporate organizations to sponsor their training. The iResponder app will allow individuals who are unable to pay to gain emergency response 

Funding – Getting corporate organisations to fund the training of first responders is really challenging. However following our track record, we are able to unlock new opportunities in the sponsorship of first responders training. Presently, we are partnering with Seplat Energy Plc for the training of secondary school students on first responders.

The novel iResponder mobile app will serve to fulfil three primary aims. Firstly, the application will enable digital delivery of first responder training content and resources for first responders. Secondly, the application will provide a framework for the centralization of monitoring and evaluation measures. This will ensure teams are able to collect adequate data for program evaluation and quality improvement. Lastly, the application will serve as a platform for mobile dispatch of first responders to provide point-of-care prehospital interventions. Here, we will outline each feature to provide a structure from which the application may be developed.

This mobile tool will be the primary means of collecting demographic information on those who participate in the first responder training course. The survey will be required from all application users to finish the account creation process. This way, we will ensure that the appropriate data is collected and stored for each participant. In addition to basic demographic features, this 50-question survey will characterize specific psychological characteristics of each first responder so the implementation team can further focus recruitment efforts based on those characteristics that most frequently correlate with high response rates. This will also enable the identification of first responders who may most benefit from the psychological resources discussed in the Mental Health and Resilience Resources section. After completing the registration and psychosocial survey, course participants should be associated with a unique identified number that will become their first responder ID after the completion of training.

The last primary aim of the iResponder application is to provide a method by which registered first responders can be dispatched to emergencies in their communities to provide emergency first aid and hospital transportation. There are two main avenues that may be pursued to achieve this goal (1) iResponder can integrate pre-existing mobile dispatch technology such as Trekmedic becon or (2) the application can use its own proprietary dispatch software. 

Next year impact goals

In the next 1 year we will also organise workshops for the personnel of the various stakeholders and institutions in the management of accident victims and emergencies on how to use the app. Some of the stakeholders include; FRSC Officials, LASEMA, Ambulance Services, NURTW officials, AIB, Police, LASTMA, Fire Service, NMA, secondary schools and artisans. We will also carry out campaigns, adverts in various media platforms to educate people on the app. We will also train more 100 students and selected personnel of emergency response on first responder life-saving skills.

iResponder mobile application will be functional in selected Local governments in Lagos State, Nigeria. First of all, it will be functional in Surulere, Mushin and Oshodi/Isolo local government areas as pilot projects in the state. Oshodi/Isolo and Mushin local governments are densely populated areas and the use of motorbikes are not restricted in these areas and so the incident of road accidents are very high those areas; the I-responder mobile application will be functional in the 57 LGA and LCDA in Lagos State. Lagos is the commercial capital of Nigeria and as such has the population of over 20 million people which is about 10% of Nigerian population. So solving the problem of accident emergencies in Lagos will reduce accident fatality rate in Nigeria.

Activities

To develop an iResponder app

To train first responders with the aid e-learning within 1 year

Advocacy on the use of mobile app

Stakeholders’ participation

Outputs

iResponder mobile application developed

Training of first responders completed

Awareness on the use of the iResponder mobile application

Outcomes

Response time to incident scene by trained first responders is reduced to 5 minutes compared to 10-20 minutes it takes using baseline data from our records

Access to credible data with regard to pre-hospital care and emergency medical service is increased by 50>#/span###

Percentage of people with knowledge in managing medical emergency is increased by 20>#/span###

Indicator

• One I-responder Mobile application developed
• 50% increase in response time in prehospital emergency cases
• 10% of First Responders gained increases skills, capacity and knowledge in managing pre-hospital emergencies.

Activities

To develop an iResponder app

To train first responders with the aid e-learning within 1 year

Advocacy on the use of mobile app

Stakeholders’ participation

Outputs

iResponder mobile application developed

Training of first responders completed

Awareness of the use of the iResponder mobile application

 Outcomes

Response time to the incident scene by trained first responders is reduced to 5 minutes compared to 10-20 minutes it takes using baseline data from our records

Access to credible data with regard to pre-hospital care and emergency medical service is increased by 50%

The percentage of people with knowledge of managing medical emergency is increased by 20%

Mobile app

Health Emergency Initiative is big on diversity in culture, tribe and religion. This is evident in the over 5000+(women, children and men) who have benefitted from our programs in the past 7 years.

iResponder mobile application for effective reporting , response and managing of emergencies.

Key Metrics

Reduction of deaths of road traffic accidents victims by 10% and child and maternal care.

Adoption of iResponders by 5000-10,000 users.

Emergency reponse time improved from 30 minutes to 15 minutes.

Inclusion and adoption of post crash care initiative by minimum of 10 key stakeholders in the health and emergency space.

• Individual donations
• Paid trainings
• Grants/Proposals
• Adverts & Subscription by private ambulance outfits

POTENTIAL DONOR/INVESTOR

GOAL, ANTICIPATED/

AMOUNT RAISED (US$)

FUNDRAISING METHOD

USE OF FUNDS

Office of the SDG Lagos State

5,500

Grant

LFR International

11,900

Crowdfunding on the GoFundMe platform/University of Michigan Endowment

Training of Lay First Responders

Crowdfunding

1.500

Online fundraising platform-Ubuntuhive

Seplat Energy

3,000

Grants approval

First Responders Training for secondary school students

Woodhall Capital Foundation

2,000

CSR donation

First Responders Training for secondary school students

ACTS Foundation

1,200

Changemakers Grant

VERRAKI

Lagos Business School

2,600.89

Changemakers Grant

First Responders/ Leadership training