CLEVELAND, OH--If someone collapses in a public place and needs CPR, University Hospitals and an East Side 9-1-1 dispatch center are now using an app called PulsePoint to let ordinary citizens know about it, hoping that people with CPR training who are close at hand will step in until emergency workers arrive.
PulsePoint is a free app launched in 2009 after San Ramon Valley Fire Chief Richard Price watched his own fire department’s trucks arrive to a medical emergency at a store next to the deli where he was eating lunch. A man at the store had collapsed and needed CPR, but because it was a medical emergency, Price didn't know about it.
“If it had been a big fire, they would have called me," Price said. "But these calls happen all the time. Had I known, I probably could have made a difference, because I had a defibrillator in my car.” Fortunately, the man survived.
Price worked with engineering students at Northern Kentucky University to develop the app, and 500 cities in 16 states are now using it.
The PulsePoint system is incorporated into the 9-1-1 protocol: in an emergency in which a person suffers a sudden cardiac arrest in a public place, app users within a quarter-mile will receive a notification of the event and also see where the nearest automated external defibrillator (AED) is located. An AED is a portable device that checks the heart rhythm and can deliver an electric shock to restore a normal rhythm if necessary.
Daniel Ellenberger, director of the EMS training & Disaster Preparedness Institute at UH, brought the technology to Northeast Ohio after seeing it demonstrated at a conference last year. Columbus-area emergency dispatchers began using the notification system over the summer.
“I thought this would be a great fit for us with our mission,” Ellenberger said. “Before anyone is going to survive an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, they have to have great CPR. We have to train people, but part of that is being notified that they’re needed. ”
Pulsepoint is available on both the iPhone and Android markets, and users can sign up after indicating they are trained in CPR and willing to assist in case of an emergency.
Starting Jan. 1, the Chagrin Valley Dispatch Center, which is based at UH Bedford Medical Center, began sending out the notifications. The dispatch center covers emergency calls for 10 East Side suburbs: South Russell, Chagrin Falls, Chagrin Falls Township, Bentleyville, Gates Mills, Hunting Valley, Moreland Hills, Orange, Woodmere and Highland Hills.
The Cleveland Clinic is also sponsoring PulsePoint for emergency dispatch in Cleveland, and on the city’s West Side in Bay Village, Fairview Park, Rocky River and Westlake, and their notification systems should be up and running over the next few months.
Sudden cardiac arrest affects about 1,000 people a day across the country, can occur in outwardly healthy people, and claims nearly 90 percent of its victims, according to the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation. Early CPR, defibrillation, advanced cardiac life support and mild therapeutic hypothermia can all help reduce the risk of death and lasting damage.
Lt. Nick DiCicco of the Orange Fire Department said the PulsePoint app and alert is invaluable.
“It could save somebody’s life,” he said. “If you get the defibrillation early, start CPR early, that’s huge.”
“You have brain death between four and six minutes,” after cardiac arrest, Ellenberger explained.
In order for the app to work, of course, people with CPR training first have to use it. UH and local fire departments that offer CPR training will be explaining the app at all their upcoming classes, and the health system and local municipalities will also be sending out information online and in newsletters.
Price said that when there are trained citizens around and AEDs nearby, “Pulsepoint can be the glue that brings it all together.”
“The odds that someone who’s trained is nearby, now the likelihood is much greater,” he said. On average, the app notifies about three people per event who are close enough to respond.
App users who travel to other cities where PulsePoint is in use can be notified there as well, Price said.
“We’re trying to build a nationwide network of CPR trained citizens, if they’re at home, at work, at a friend’s house, on vacation,” he said.
SOURCE: The Plain Dealer