ANN ARBOR—A new partnership between the University of Michigan and GVK EMRI, the largest ambulance services provider in India, may help shape response to trauma after an accident on India’s streets.

The partnership will provide opportunities for education, training and collaborative research to study and improve emergency medical operations in India. U-M will work with GVK EMRI to improve bystander training, developing specific protocols for trauma resuscitation, training educators and performing research pertaining to emergency trauma stabilization centers.

Krishnan Raghavendran

“Identifying specific ways to reduce traumatic injuries in India is critical,” said Krishnan Raghavendran, professor of surgery at the U-M Medical School. “A partnership with the largest ambulance provider in the world is an essential step in that direction.”

The global burden of trauma is hard to measure. Reports estimate that about 16,000 people die from injuries every day and 85% of all traumatic injuries occur in developing countries. Improving trauma care is a serious challenge in India, where traffic accidents kill more than 150,000 people each year on increasingly congested highways and byways.

GVK EMRI’s 108 centers around the country handle nearly 200,000 calls and more than 3,000 traffic accidents, and assist in more than 22,000 emergencies and about 100 child births everyday.

“We believe that one of the contributing factors for providing efficient live-saving services is the wealth of knowledge shared by partner institutions,” said Subodh Satyawadi, president of GVK EMRI. “We have worked with the University of Michigan in various areas in the last decade and this (agreement) will provide a clear road map for our long-term congruent goals.”

U-M Medical School researcher Krishnan Raghvendran demonstrates a procedure to advanced Emergency medical technicians. Image credit: Krishnan Raghvendran

As part of the collaboration, the U-M School of Medicine and GVK EMRI will develop a trauma training program for doctors, nurses and paramedics. Another program will provide bystander training, with a focus on auto-rickshaw drivers and other public transport drivers in India.

“We believe that one of the contributing factors for providing efficient live-saving services is the wealth of knowledge shared by partner institutions”
Subodh Satyawadi

The collaboration also will help them conduct a performance measurement and assessment with help from U-M’s Ross School of Business. Together, they will develop the assessment and satisfaction surveys to be delivered in different states in India where the GVK runs the EMRI services.

Ravi Anupindi

“U-M and GVK EMRI have jointly identified needs for training, education and research in clinical and operational aspects of emergency response,” said Ravi Anupindi, professor of operations research and management at U-M’s Ross School. “Learnings from this collaboration will also inform design, planning and implementation of similar systems in the rest of the developing world.”

“Given the work GVK EMRI has done in India, there is a lot of interest from developing countries like Ghana, Uganda, Cambodia, Maldives, El Salvador and Uzbekistan to learn from this model and also implement it in their countries,” said K. Krishnam Raju, director of GVK EMRI.

With assistance from U-M’s William Davidson Institute, the organization wants to provide global scaling of the GVK EMRI model and document lessons as they do it.

U-M Medical School researcher Krishnan Raghvendran with Ramana Rao, medical director of GVK-EMRI. Image credit: Krishnan Raghvendran

“We are excited that we will work with U-M expert faculty to design interventions to solve our problem areas and take our operations to a higher level of efficiencies and have access to global best practices,” Satyawadi said.

More information:

• Michigan Medicine
• Ross School of Business
• William Davidson Institute