In 2025, the Emergency Medicine Kenya Foundation (EMKF) marked a significant milestone – 10 years of strengthening emergency healthcare systems across Kenya to save lives.
What began as a response to a critical gap in emergency medical care in Kenya has evolved into a national effort to build coordinated, resilient emergency healthcare systems that ensure people receive timely, life-saving care when it matters most.
From Fragmentation to Coordination
A decade ago, emergency medical care in Kenya was largely fragmented, with limited ambulance coordination, under-resourced emergency departments, and minimal integration between community, prehospital, and facility-based emergency medical care.
Today, that landscape is changing.
Through a systems-based approach, EMKF has worked alongside national and county governments to strengthen the core components of emergency medical care:
- Emergency response by Community Health Workers
- Public ambulance services
- Public Emergency Departments
- Policy and governance frameworks
This integrated approach ensures that emergency medical care is no longer a series of disconnected services but a coordinated system designed to save lives.
A Year of Momentum
In 2025 alone:
- 44 public emergency departments were supported
- 13 public ambulance services were strengthened
- 16 counties advanced emergency care policy development
- Over 12,000 healthcare providers were trained
- The Casualty App surpassed 10,000 users, expanding access to emergency medical care knowledge
These achievements reflect not only growth in scale but also the strengthening of systems that improve coordination, reduce delays in care, and enhance healthcare providers’ ability to respond effectively to emergencies.
Innovation Driving Change
Technology is playing an increasingly important role in transforming emergency medical care.
The Ambulensi platform is enabling real-time coordination of public ambulance services, improving dispatch, tracking, and response times across counties.
At the same time, the Casualty App is bridging the gap between knowledge and action, providing healthcare workers and first responders with immediate access to life-saving guidance—including the newly introduced Resuscitate function for managing cardiac arrest.
Artificial intelligence is now being integrated into these tools, with plans to further strengthen real-time decision-making and system coordination.
Building for Scale
While progress has been significant, the need remains substantial.
Kenya has 47 counties, each requiring a functional emergency healthcare system. EMKF’s Scale Strategy provides a clear, evidence-based pathway to achieve this, outlining how proven interventions can be expanded sustainably across the country.
Encouragingly, there is growing alignment with government priorities and increasing uptake of these solutions at the county level, signalling readiness for national scale.
The Power of Partnership
None of this progress would have been possible without strong partnerships.
Over the past 10 years, EMKF has worked closely with national and county governments, healthcare providers, and development partners to co-create practical, scalable, and sustainable solutions.
This collaborative approach ensures that systems are not only implemented but also government-owned, maintained, and strengthened over time.
Looking Ahead
As EMKF enters its next phase, the focus remains clear:
to scale coordinated, equitable, and sustainable emergency healthcare systems across Kenya.
The goal is ambitious, but achievable, because the foundation has been built, the systems are taking shape, and the partnerships are strong.
Saving Lives, Together
Every emergency is a race against time.
Over the past decade, EMKF has worked to ensure that when emergencies happen, the system is ready, ready to respond, ready to treat, and ready to save lives.
And this is only the beginning.
