Seedlabs

Sepsis ETA Gate: Prehospital Sepsis Screening and Antibiotic Timing App for Ambulance Crews

An app for ambulance crews to screen for sepsis and give antibiotics before the patient reaches the hospital.

A tablet app for ambulance and flight crews that screens acutely ill patients for sepsis en route and, when a patient shows septic shock with more than 60 minutes to hospital evaluation, guides protocolized prehospital antibiotics and pre-notifies the receiving ED.

MedicineSepsis Diagnosis and Treatment
Microbial Symbiosis and ResistancePrehospital emergency care (ground and air ambulance services)

Concept

The 2026 Surviving Sepsis Campaign (SSC) guidelines add two brand-new prehospital statements: (3) use a standard sepsis screening tool in acutely ill adults en route to hospital by ambulance or flight, and (21) administer antimicrobial therapy in the vehicle for adults with septic shock whose anticipated time to in-hospital medical evaluation exceeds 60 minutes — explicitly conditioned on having a structured screening process already in place. Sepsis ETA Gate is a tablet application plus a medical-director protocol package that closes that operational gap. On every acutely ill transport, the crew runs the agency's chosen standard sepsis screen in the app; the app pulls a live GPS-based estimate of time to the destination ED; and when the patient meets septic-shock criteria (suspected infection plus hypotension) with more than 60 minutes to in-hospital evaluation, it unlocks the agency's protocolized prehospital antibiotic (agent selected by the medical director), walks the crew through weight-based administration and documentation, and pushes an automated pre-notification to the receiving hospital's sepsis team. The single wedge is compressing time-to-antibiotic for the roughly half of sepsis hospitalizations that arrive by ambulance, using the guideline's own 60-minute ETA threshold to decide when field treatment is worth the complexity.

Why now

  • The 2026 SSC guidelines state that approximately half of patients hospitalized for sepsis arrive via ambulance and that prehospital screening has been associated with improved processes of care — the basis for new statement 3 suggesting a standard screening tool in ambulance or flight.
  • New statement 21 suggests prehospital antimicrobial administration for septic shock when anticipated time to in-hospital evaluation exceeds 60 minutes, citing meta-analyses of observational studies and of randomized trials suggesting a possible reduction in 28-day mortality — but only after a structured screening process is in place, which is precisely the capability this product provides.
  • The guidelines retain a strong recommendation to administer antimicrobials within 1 hour of recognition in septic shock, so for shock patients the clock now effectively starts in the field.
  • Sepsis contributes to an estimated 13.7 million deaths annually per the guidelines, and global burden analyses [2] confirm a population of tens of millions of cases — large enough to justify a dedicated prehospital tool.

Written by GLM · 10 Oct 2026

AI assessment

Backed by 2 papers88

A highly focused, evidence-backed tool that operationalizes a specific new clinical guideline to reduce time-to-antibiotics in high-risk prehospital sepsis cases.

Evidence strength
5/5
The idea is directly derived from two specific, new statements (3 and 21) in the 2026 Surviving Sepsis Campaign guidelines, making the evidence-to-product mapping exceptionally tight.
Market pull
4/5
Large EMS providers (Falck, AMR) have a strong incentive to meet international guidelines to reduce mortality and improve quality metrics, though procurement cycles in public health can be slow.
Novelty & moat
3/5
While it follows a similar pattern to the 'EMS Stroke Destination App' in the catalog, it addresses a distinct clinical pathology and a unique timing-based trigger (the 60-minute ETA gate).
Feasibility
5/5
The app requires basic logic gates, GPS integration for ETA, and a notification system, all of which are standard software capabilities that a small team could build quickly.
Wedge clarity
5/5
The '60-minute ETA gate' is a sharp, specific wedge that prevents over-treatment and focuses the product on the highest-value use case.
Simplicity / focus
5/5
The product is a single-purpose tool with a clear workflow: screen, check ETA, administer/notify, and document.

Scored by Gemma 4 · 10 Oct 2026. Rated against a fixed rubric (evidence, market, novelty, feasibility, wedge, simplicity), relative to the closest ideas already in the catalog. A prior estimate to compare ideas before real-world signal arrives.

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Who benefits

  • American Medical Responsecompany

    One of the largest US ambulance operators; a standardized, guideline-aligned sepsis screen with an ETA-gated antibiotic protocol lets its medical directors roll out the 2026 SSC prehospital statements across a national fleet with consistent documentation.

  • Air Methodscompany

    The largest US air medical transporter; flight times routinely exceed the 60-minute ETA threshold at which the guidelines suggest prehospital antibiotics, so the gate is frequently actionable for its crews.

  • Falckcompany

    Operates ambulance and emergency services across Europe, where SSC guidance shapes national sepsis pathways; a prehospital sepsis screen-and-treat capability is a differentiator in competitive service tenders.

  • London Ambulance Service NHS Trustorganization

    Runs one of the world's busiest ambulance services with an established prehospital sepsis pathway; a structured screening tool with automated hospital pre-notification supports NHS sepsis recognition and treatment targets.

Research it builds on

  1. Global, regional, and national sepsis incidence and mortality, 1990–2021: a systematic analysis
    Authia P Gray, Erin Chung, Rebecca L. Hsu et al. · 2025 · 207 citations
    All ideas from this paper →
  2. Executive Summary: Surviving Sepsis Campaign: International Guidelines for Management of Sepsis and Septic Shock 2026
    Hallie C. Prescott, Massimo M. Antonelli, Waleed Alhazzani et al. · 2026 · 138 citations
    All ideas from this paper →
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feasibility