Electronic Community Alerting and Response to Cardiac Arrest

Public safety agencies are increasingly using mobile apps to engage CPR-trained citizens on nearby out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) events occurring in their community. For extremely time sensitive emergencies like cardiac arrest, notifying these “first-first responders” who are in the immediate vicinity of an event—simultaneously with the conventional Fire/EMS response—offers the potential to improve outcomes. By expanding situational awareness beyond the purview of a traditional witnessed arrest radius, there’s a better opportunity to instantly draw skilled individuals, including off-duty healthcare professionals, enabling critical life-sustaining BLS interventions to begin sooner and more often. Over the past eight years, government and non-profit organizations have developed mobile app initiatives to bridge the gap between a cardiac arrest event and the arrival of a traditional prehospital response. These apps work effectively to match victims in cardiac arrest with nearby CPR-trained individuals. Some solutions only target vetted healthcare professionals, while others target both professionals and lay rescuers with only basic training. Rescuer notifications are typically driven by the local jurisdiction’s computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system, the same system used to dispatch emergency responders. If the call-taker-driven emergency medical call protocol determines that a cardiac arrest event has likely occurred, emergency responders and nearby app respond...
Source: JEMS Administration and Leadership - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Tags: Cardiac & Resuscitation Top Story Exclusive Articles Communications Dispatch Administration and Leadership Heart of America Source Type: news