BROOMFIELD — Minutes count between when ambulance sirens sound and patients are wheeled into emergency rooms — a maxim Broomfield resident Mike Kobneck saw firsthand.
Kobneck was a paramedic for more than 10 years before he started Novum Concepts and created the Biophone app with Kevin Scardina, a fellow paramedic and software developer.
The smartphone app is used by first responders to send images and video from the field to the emergency room.
The two worked nights and weekends for about 10 months to develop the app, which has been live at Good Samaritan Medical Center since August.
Since then, it has transferred information for more than 340 patients — a task that can be done on site, at the scene of a crash or in someone’s living room, or by using a hotspot inside the ambulance.
Kobneck offers training to departments, but paramedics in Lafayette simply downloaded the app and began using it.
An icon on the app’s main page brings up a comment section so firefighters can submit questions from their phones.
The six-step process takes seconds to complete — paramedics snap a photo of a patient’s drivers license; select a medical complaint and a severity level; pick a medical facility and an estimated time of arrival; and then hit the send/call button.
Photos are saved to the app — which is compliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA — and not on phones, Kobneck said.
Biophone is free for paramedics, who can download it on department-owned or personal phones. The app is available for iOS, Android and iPad.
So far, medics with Mountain View Fire Rescue, Louisville Fire Department, Lafayette and Rocky Mountain Fire have downloaded the app.
Hospitals that use the app pay a monthly subscription fee and receive the incoming information on an iPad.
The quicker a patient is registered with the hospital, the faster diagnostic tools, such as CAT scans, lab tests or X-rays, can be ordered, Kobneck said.
