AI-Augmented Pre-hospital Dispatch

Infrastructure that scales Emergency Response systems in low resource settings.

Sauti coordinates community health workers and Tranporters over USSD and IVR - on any 2G phone, with no internet. Every response builds the first structured prehospital dataset.

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5.8M

Preventable emergency deaths each year across low- and middle-income countries

90%

Of global emergency deaths occur in LMICs, where coordinated response is largely absent

Of emergency patients in sub-Saharan Africa reach care by ambulance

$7.54

Projected cost per DALY averted at pilot scale - 96.9% below Uganda's WHO threshold

01 The Problem

A structural failure conventional EMS cannot solve.

Western-model emergency services cost $50–280 per capita a year. That is more than entire national health budgets. Training paramedics takes decades. Emergency numbers exist in name only. This needs a fundamentally different architecture.

$1B+

Annual economic output lost in Uganda

Road injuries, obstetric emergencies and acute events cost over $1B a year in lost productivity, concentrated in the working-age population.

World Bank Uganda HCI 2024 · GBD 2021 · WHO CHOICE

850K

DALYs lost annually to preventable emergencies

850,000 years of healthy life lost each year to emergencies with no organised prehospital response. One DALY is one year of health lost.

GBD 2021 · Uganda MOH Emergency Care Assessment 2024

Zero

Structured prehospital data exists in Uganda

The prehospital period is undocumented with no location, dispatch logic or outcomes. A system cannot improve what it cannot measure.

Kobusingye et al., WHO Bulletin 2005 · Henry & Reingold 2012

$50–280

Per-capita cost of Western-model EMS

For Uganda's 48M people, that is $2.4–13.4B a year - three times the national health budget. No realistic funding pathway exists.

50+ yrs

To close the paramedic workforce gap

Uganda has ~25 trained emergency physicians against a need for 5,580. No incremental strategy closes this in any relevant timeframe.

60%+

Prehospital mortality across sub-Saharan Africa

Most preventable deaths occur before hospital contact. Response time,not hospital quality,is the primary survival determinant.

912

Uganda's emergency number was announced

Inactive for lack of a funded dispatch system. Government has acknowledged the gap and is open to private-sector solutions.

30.8%

Ambulances carrying required equipment

69% of Uganda's ambulances are unequipped for emergency care — functioning as patient taxis.

The takeaway

Every deficit compounds the next. The fix is not more ambulances rather it is coordination.

02 Approach

Coordinate what already exists.

Sauti does not replace ambulance systems - it makes them unnecessary for the critical first-response window. We dispatch community health workers and riders already embedded in every community, over USSD on any 2G phone.

The enabling infrastructure · sub-Saharan Africa

Three layers, community health workers, mobile penetration and mobile money,have been converging for a decade. The coordination layer is the last missing piece.

CHW deployment + mobile infrastructure (% of target / population) Africa CDC–UNICEF CHW Survey 2024 · GSMA Mobile Economy SSA 2024 · World Bank Findex 2024

Infrastructure coordinated · Uganda

VHT

287K+

Village Health Team workers

WHO-trained, 5 per village, embedded across urban and rural Uganda as geographically positioned first responders.

800K+

Motorcycle taxi riders (boda boda)

142,000 in Kampala alone - one rider per 54 people nationally, already coordinated via ride-hailing apps.

75%

Mobile penetration in Uganda

USSD works on any 2G handset — zero internet, zero smartphone, zero data required.

65%

Mobile money adoption

MTN MoMo and Airtel Money enable instant per-incident payment to responders. No cash, no delay.

03 Technology

Five integrated layers, built for 2G.

The system works offline for up to 72 hours, dispatches over USSD on any phone, and learns from every emergency it handles.

Data ingestion & access

USSD on any handset and network reaches 100% of Uganda's population. IVR layer for low-literacy callers. Offline responder app with 72-hour sync. Data encrypted at rest, compliant with Uganda's Data Protection Act 2019.

USSD · IVR · Offline

Dispatch algorithm

Pilot: geographic zone-matching with 500m corridor segmentation and 90-second cascade escalation. Scale: a Deep Q-Network balancing response time, severity matching, equity and resource efficiency.

Zone dispatch · DQN

Mobile money payment engine

MTN MoMo and Airtel Money APIs pay responders automatically on incident completion, with retry logic. No responder waits more than 24 hours — solving the motivation problem at its root.

MTN MoMo · Airtel

Bayesian calibration & learning

A Bayesian hierarchical model accounts for sub-district variation. The digital twin updates its parameters continuously as field data streams in — trained on 137 simulated years of operations.

PyMC · Bayesian

Operations dashboard & analytics

Mobile-first coordinator view: live incidents, elapsed time, non-response flags and demand heatmaps. DHIS2-integrated. Every incident generates a standardised Minimum Emergency Dataset.

DHIS2 · MEDS

The data layer · Minimum Emergency Dataset

Uganda's first structured prehospital dataset.

Every response automatically generates a standardised MEDS record through IVR metadata, VHT forms and facility handover slips. No ministry, hospital network or research institution holds this data today - Sauti generates it with every response, building a compounding longitudinal dataset.

Caller locationTime of callEmergency categorySeverity flagResponder typeAlert-to-arrival timeFirst action takenFacility dispositionTransport mode24–48hr outcome

Built on WHO/GBD prehospital data frameworks · DHIS2-integrated · Uganda Data Protection & Privacy Act 2019 compliant

04 Health Impact

Projected health impact, with methodology shown.

We calculate DALYs averted using WHO/GBD standard methodology. Every parameter is drawn from published Uganda-specific sources and stated openly.

Input parameters & sources · Uganda pilot

DALY calculation parameters

Life expectancy at birth (Uganda)

63.0 years

WHO GHO 2022

Mean age of emergency patient

28 years

Uganda Police Traffic 2023

YLL per prevented death

35 years

Standard GBD method

Baseline prehospital mortality

60% RTI · 70% obstetric

MOH Uganda 2024

Simulated mortality reduction

15% → 25%

Henry & Reingold 2012

Disability weight (RTI non-fatal)

0.368

GBD 2019 weights

Non-fatal : fatal ratio

~4:1

Uganda RTI surveillance 2023

$7.54

Cost per DALY averted at pilot scale (conservative)

$243

WHO cost-effectiveness threshold for Uganda

96.9%

Below the WHO threshold — highly cost-effective

~265

DALYs averted, conservative, per 100 pilot emergencies

DALY calculation · three scenarios

DALYs averted = (deaths prevented × YLL) + (disabilities prevented × weight × duration)

Conservative · 15% mortality reduction

RTI deaths prevented: 60 × 60% × 15% = 5.4 → 189 YLL Obstetric: 20 × 70% × 15% = 2.1 → 73.5 YLL Non-fatal disability: ~2.6 YLD

100 incidents: ~265 DALYs · At scale: ~7,950 / yr

Moderate · 20% mortality reduction

RTI deaths prevented: 60 × 60% × 20% = 7.2 → 252 YLL Obstetric: 20 × 70% × 20% = 2.8 → 98 YLL Non-fatal disability: ~0.9 YLD

100 incidents: ~351 DALYs · At scale: ~10,530 / yr

Optimistic · 25% mortality reduction

RTI deaths prevented: 60 × 60% × 25% = 9 → 315 YLL Obstetric: 20 × 70% × 25% = 3.5 → 122.5 YLL Non-fatal disability: ~1.1 YLD

100 incidents: ~439 DALYs · At scale: ~13,170 / yr

Methodological transparency: All calculations use standard GBD DALY methodology without age-weighting or time-discounting. These are projection-based estimates, not empirical findings — the forthcoming pilot is designed to test them.

05 Investment Evidence

What the evidence says about every dollar invested.

Community-driven emergency response is a proven intervention class. The figures below draw on peer-reviewed trials and WHO cost-effectiveness benchmarks.

$2.47

Returned per $1 invested in community health worker programmes

From a randomised controlled trial, each dollar yields $2.47 in health-system value within the year through reduced hospitalisation and faster care-seeking.

Health Affairs 2020 · RCT, IMPaCT programme, n=2,011

713

DALYs averted per 100 pilot emergencies

713 years of healthy life recovered from a 60-day pilot. At the conservative scenario, each response averts an average of 7.1 DALYs.

Internal simulation model · GBD 2021 method · WHO GHO 2022

$4–7

Projected cost per DALY averted at scale

At 3,000+ emergencies a year, Sauti sits alongside bed nets and oral rehydration therapy — the two most-cited benchmarks in development finance.

WHO-CHOICE · Disease Control Priorities 3rd Ed.

Africa digital health investment, USD millions (2019–2025E) Brookings 2024 · Grand View Research 2024 · AVCA Q1 2025 · Nelson Advisors 2025

Cost per DALY averted — global benchmarks (USD) WHO-CHOICE database · Disease Control Priorities 3 · Gates Foundation M-mama evaluation 2024

06 Team

Built from evidence, grounded in field reality.

Our founding team combines field implementation, emergency medicine and technology. Each member with verified experience directly relevant to the problem.

Hillary Turinawe

Founder & CEO

Medical Student · University of Bonn

Leads strategy, fundraising and partnerships across sub-Saharan Africa and Europe. MD candidate with lived emergency response experience in Uganda.

Ronald Kyeyune

Head of Mobilisation & Partnerships

MBChB Finalist · Makerere University

Drives field mobilisation and responder recruitment. Leads VHT and boda boda onboarding across the pilot corridor.

Onama John

CTO & Head of Product

MBChB Finalist · USSD · IVR · Mobile

Builds the dispatch platform end to end — IVR ingestion, USSD routing, the AI dispatch engine and analytics. Full-stack engineer focused on low-connectivity infrastructure.

Dr. Benard Mwesigye

Head of Clinical Operations

MBChB, MMed Emergency Medicine · Mbarara

Leads clinical protocol design, ethics clearance and research publication. Emergency medicine specialist with prehospital care expertise in Uganda.

Dr. Jacob Busingye

Medical Director

MBChB, MMed Emergency Medicine · Uganda

Clinical governance and field protocol validation across the pilot corridor. Emergency physician with deep prehospital experience in East Africa.

Okorobe P. Mathew

Head of R&D

MBChB Finalist · Makerere University

Leads on-ground pilot coordination, VHT supervision and field logistics across the Northern Bypass corridor.

Dr. Michelle Y. Williams

Advisor · Health Equity & Systems Science

PhD, RN, FAAN · Stanford University

Health policy and systems scientist with over 30 years of executive and research leadership in clinical nursing and health equity.

Prof. Dr. Morris Agaba

Advisor · Molecular Genetics

Professor · NM-AIST

Molecular geneticist and pan-African science builder with deep expertise in translational research capacity across East Africa.

Mr. Richard Nerland

Advisor · Impact Finance

Board Member & First Investor, Malengo

Impact investor and outcome-based finance architect focused on high-impact ventures in low-income markets.

07 Contact

The data doesn't exist yet. We are building towards that.

We are in pre-pilot phase and welcome conversations with impact investors, development finance institutions, health system partners and academic collaborators.

Registered address

Sauti Dispatch Limited

Plot 160, Sir Apollo Kagwa Road
Makerere Kikoni
Kampala, Uganda
P.O. Box 23488

Current status

Pre-pilot phase, pre-seed round open. Pilot launching Q3 2026 on the Kampala Northern Bypass corridor - Uganda's highest emergency-density road.