Ambulance booking

Ambulance booking on UHI lets a patient or a caregiver find ambulances near them across every registered provider, see arrival windows and indicative charges, and start a booking with the one they pick. After this page you will know the four calls that are live today, their fields, and what NHA tests your app for.

Read UHI services first, for the context block, the acknowledgement model, signing and the two transports.

What is live, and what is not​

This service is released in two phases.

Today the flow ends at a quote. The patient discovers ambulances, picks one, sends their details with init, and receives a quote with terms in on_init. There is no confirm. The outcome is the patient requesting a callback from the provider they chose.

Two limits follow from that.

• The agent block must not appear in any current-phase payload. Driver name, vehicle number and driver phone are post-confirmation data. Their absence is tested in on_search and on_init, and tests that your EUA shows no driver or vehicle UI at any point before confirmation.
• Live tracking and dispatch updates are not available. They arrive with the second phase.

Out of scope right now​

• The NON_EMERGENCY flow, which is future scope. Build EMERGENCY first.
• Booking confirmation and order creation from the EUA.
• State-operated ambulance networks. 108, 102 and 112 services are not on UHI today.
• Patient transport ambulances. An HSPA may return a PTA category in its catalog. Ignore it.

Service identity​

Who is involved​

The four calls​

Every one returns an acknowledgement synchronously. The real answer arrives later at the callback URL.

Silence is not an error. An HSPA answers only for areas it covers, so no response from a given HSPA tells you nothing about network health.

Search filters​

ALS is advanced life support, BLS is basic life support. For an emergency search, set the class to ALL so nothing available is filtered out.

search​

context is the standard UHI block. The service-specific parts live in message.intent.

Sample, emergency​

With your identifiers substituted.

{
  "context": {
    "domain": "nic2008:86909",
    "country": "IND",
    "city": "std:011",
    "action": "search",
    "core_version": "0.7.1",
    "consumer_id": "<YOUR_EUA_ID_FROM_NHA_ONBOARDING>",
    "consumer_uri": "<YOUR_HTTPS_CALLBACK_URL>",
    "message_id": "e9a19230-f951-11ec-b135-53aea776f66b",
    "timestamp": "2026-03-23T15:24:35",
    "transaction_id": "e9a19230-f951-11ec-b135-53aea776f66b"
  },
  "message": {
    "intent": {
      "category": {
        "descriptor": { "code": "ALS", "name": "ALS" }
      },
      "fulfillment": {
        "type": "EMERGENCY",
        "start": { "time": { "timestamp": "2026-01-05T15:24:35" } },
        "end": { "time": { "timestamp": "2026-01-05T23:59:59" } },
        "tags": { "additional_services": "oxygen cylinder, etc" }
      },
      "locations": [
        {
          "descriptor": { "code": "SOURCE", "name": "SOURCE" },
          "gps": "12.423423,77.325647",
          "address": "SHIVAJI MARG, PUNE"
        }
      ],
      "item": {
        "descriptor": { "code": "AMBULANCE", "name": "AMBULANCE" }
      }
    }
  }
}

on_search​

How the pieces link​

Each fulfilment ID appears twice: once where the fulfilment is declared, and once as items[].fulfillment_id. The item also carries category_id. The chain is category, then fulfilment, then item, joined through the item object. Walk it to show "ALS ambulance, arriving 12:30 to 12:35, around 500 rupees".

Sample, trimmed​

{
  "context": {
    "domain": "nic2008:86909",
    "action": "on_search",
    "core_version": "0.7.1",
    "consumer_id": "<YOUR_EUA_ID_FROM_NHA_ONBOARDING>",
    "consumer_uri": "<YOUR_HTTPS_CALLBACK_URL>",
    "provider_id": "<HSPA_ID_FROM_THIS_RESPONSE>",
    "provider_uri": "<HSPA_CALLBACK_URL_FROM_THIS_RESPONSE>",
    "transaction_id": "e9a19230-f951-11ec-b135-53aea776f66b",
    "message_id": "e9a19230-f951-11ec-b135-53aea776f66b"
  },
  "message": {
    "catalog": {
      "descriptor": {
        "name": "Medulance HSPA",
        "flag": false,
        "short_desc": "Medulance: Ambulance Provider HSPA"
      },
      "providers": [
        {
          "id": "1",
          "descriptor": { "name": "Medulance", "flag": false },
          "categories": [
            { "id": "1", "descriptor": { "name": "Advanced Life Support (ALS)", "code": "ALS", "flag": false } },
            { "id": "2", "descriptor": { "name": "Basic Life Support (BLS)", "code": "BLS", "flag": false } }
          ],
          "fulfillments": [
            {
              "id": "ML-ALS-01",
              "type": "EMERGENCY",
              "tracking": true,
              "start": { "time": { "timestamp": "2026-01-05T12:30:00" } },
              "end": { "time": { "timestamp": "2026-01-05T12:35:00" } },
              "tags": {
                "additional_services": "oxygen cylinder, etc",
                "deeplink_url": "https://deeplinkurl.com"
              }
            }
          ],
          "items": [
            {
              "id": "1",
              "descriptor": { "name": "Charges", "flag": true },
              "price": {
                "currency": "INR",
                "value": "500",
                "estimated_Value": "500",
                "minimum_Value": "200",
                "maximum_Value": "1500"
              },
              "category_id": "1",
              "fulfillment_id": "ML-ALS-01"
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

init​

Direct to the HSPA, at the provider_uri you took from on_search.

on_init​

The HSPA answers with the order ID, a quote and the terms.

Three terms apply in the current phase: Commercial, Cancellation and Payment, each at INITIATED.

{
  "quote": {
    "price": { "currency": "INR", "value": "500.0" },
    "breakup": [
      { "title": "Ambulance Base Charge", "price": { "currency": "INR", "value": "400.0" } },
      { "title": "Consumable Charges", "price": { "currency": "INR", "value": "100.0" } }
    ]
  },
  "payment": { "type": "ON-ORDER", "status": "NOT_PAID" }
}

Most of on_init exists for the second phase. You may receive these fields now without showing all of them to the user yet.

What your EUA has to show​

Edge cases to handle​

Prerequisites​

For an EUA:

• ABDM M2 with HIE-CM completed. This is the hard prerequisite for production access.
• A publicly reachable HTTPS consumer_uri for on_search and on_init.
• Ed25519 signing with BLAKE-512 body hashing.
• Asynchronous handling. Do not block on a synchronous reply to search or init.
• EMERGENCY support at minimum. NON_EMERGENCY is recommended, not required.

For an HSPA:

• A publicly reachable HTTPS callback URL for search from the gateway and init from EUAs.
• Ed25519 signing on every outbound response.
• Real-time or near real-time availability data. Integrations relying only on manually maintained records are not approved for production.
• An on_init that carries a confirmed quote, payment terms and a cancellation policy.
• No agent block in any current-phase payload.

What is missing here​

• The calls in the second phase have no field reference yet.
• A Postman collection for this service is available from your onboarding contact.
• Error codes for this service are not enumerated in the source document.

Next​

• UHI services for the shared protocol
• Physical consultation, the service with the full lifecycle
• Blood bank
• Support