Jason Ervin, the co-founder of Stat, has set an ambitious goal for his company’s mobile health app: cutting the amount of time it takes for ambulances to make a pick up. It comes from three emergency situations, including one involving with his grandfather, where there was a delayed response and concluded there’s a more efficient way.
At DreamIt Ventures’ DreamIt Health demo day in Philadelphia, Ervin noted in his pitch that ambulances sit idle 35 percent to 65 percent of the time. In its conversations with Penn Medicine, it discovered that after 6pm there’s a lag time that can make it more difficult to find ambulances.
“What happens today is an ambulance may take someone to dialysis and if it doesn’t have another call, it will sit and wait until the patient’s appointment has ended,” said Ervin, a co-founder. “We’re trying to fill the void by sending these ambulances calls.”
It charges ambulance companies $20 for to be on the service and takes a percentage of the fee the ambulance company charges for a pick up. For companies that have a service contract with a particular healthcare facility, it charges a $10 flat fee.
Initially it will focus on non-emergencies because there are fewer regulatory hurdles, such as discharges and dialysis pick up and drop off, for example. But it sees opportunities in emergency service where there’s less regulation, particularly Texas cities Houston and San Antonio. It is currently raising $750,000 to expand its business in Philadelphia, Boston and Houston.
Ervin and co-founder Brian Freeman hail from Texas. Ervin notes that Houston has the most ambulance companies in any city with 480.
