Those steps could be automated. And since this would usually be life-threatened situations, they should be automated. I wonder how much HIPPA rules complicate the technology; they certainly don't make the space attractive or fun to work in. This sounds like a great disruption for a startup to make, if they can deal with HIPPA effectively.
There are several companies (including a couple YC alums like Aptible) working in the helping-developers-deal-with-HIPAA space already. Creating a compliant application for transmitting ECGs wouldn't really be a new thing-- when attending an emergency medicine conference two years ago I met a physician/programmer who had done just this for both stroke and heart attack, designed and marketed as a wraparound subscription-based solution. The trick is doing it well, and if you could integrate the information with the receiving hospital's workflows (e.g. EPIC integration or something) you could sell it easier. Pictures of ECGs are also a fairly inelegant solution compared to sending it to the ECG printers that a receiving hospital has, or sending the actual waveform data, but for rural/underfunded EMS agencies it would be nice.
(FWIW, I work in a Bay Area emergency department that is a STEMI receiving center but does not receive field-transmitted ECGs prior to arrival. There's room to work on this stuff. If anyone wants to do research relating to it or build a system and then let me do research with it, get in touch.)
There are several companies (including a couple YC alums like Aptible) working in the helping-developers-deal-with-HIPAA space already. Creating a compliant application for transmitting ECGs wouldn't really be a new thing-- when attending an emergency medicine conference two years ago I met a physician/programmer who had done just this for both stroke and heart attack, designed and marketed as a wraparound subscription-based solution. The trick is doing it well, and if you could integrate the information with the receiving hospital's workflows (e.g. EPIC integration or something) you could sell it easier. Pictures of ECGs are also a fairly inelegant solution compared to sending it to the ECG printers that a receiving hospital has, or sending the actual waveform data, but for rural/underfunded EMS agencies it would be nice.
(FWIW, I work in a Bay Area emergency department that is a STEMI receiving center but does not receive field-transmitted ECGs prior to arrival. There's room to work on this stuff. If anyone wants to do research relating to it or build a system and then let me do research with it, get in touch.)