A research done in Sweden and published in The New England Journal of Medicine states that a mobile app which locates and notifies CPR-trained volunteers in case a cardiac arrest occurs in the area might increase the victim’s chances of survival by offering assistance faster than any emergency responders could.
The system, named “SMS Lifesavers”, was trialed in Stockholm and offered positive results, increasing the amount of bystander CPR – non-emergency respondents who offer CPR to cardiac arrest sufferers – by 30 percent. A larger anterior study also proved that cardiac arrest victims who receive emergency CPR immediately have a six percent larger survivability rate over the next month than those who don’t.
“The new mobile phone text-message alert system shows convincingly that new technology can be used to ensure that more people receive life-saving treatment as they wait for an ambulance” said Dr. Jacob Hollenberg, one of the lead authors of the study in a press statement.
Dr. Hollenberg argued that this does not make mass CPR training obsolete, but that results of the system could not be replicated via other means.
The system was set-up with technology already used by menial services such as friend finder apps or GPS trackers. Whenever emergency services were alerted to a possible cardiac arrest, dispatcher activated the system which sent out notifications to registered CPR-trained volunteers within a 0.3 mile radius of the victim’s location.
The study encompassed over 16,000 CPR-trained volunteers – none of them having any professional medical background – over the course of eighteen months during which more than 1,000 cardiac arrest cases were observed. The results clearly show an increase in first aid granted before emergency medical services could reach the victim when the mobile system was activated; with CPR being administered before EMS arrived in 62 percent of cases when the system was on and only 48 percent when the system was offline.
According to CDC statistics, more than 92 percent of people who suffer a cardiac arrest outside of medical centers end up dying, and there are many who would have increased survivability chances if CPR would be administered within three minutes of suffering the attack. The seven minute average response time from emergency medical personnel is in most cases too long to avoid severe caused by the lack of oxygen. Apparently, a similar cardiac arrest mobile app could be implemented in the U.S., but it would need to get government approval beforehand.
Image Source: Medical Daily
