Seattle App Summons Help When You Need CPR (geekwire.com)

An anonymous reader writes:Sudden cardiac arrest is usually fatal. But Seattle's Fire Department has joined with the city's Medic One Foundation to develop an app which alerts emergency dispatchers and also CPR-trained bystanders when someone needs CPR. The PulsePoint app also shows the location of the nearest defibrillator, and Seattle's mayor says he hopes it will save lives. A Spokane version of the app is already credited with helping to save the life of an infant, and the Medic One Foundation hopes to work with more local fire department to bring the app to the rest of Washington State.

Comments

Open data?

[SuperKendall]

If I read that right, there are two apps for two cities?

Is that PulsePoint data available anywhere (the location of portable defib stations?) it seems like it would be a great idea to have an open API to that data set that let anyone build an app that could find the nearest defib wherever you were on Earth... and perhaps a network of people registered for CPR that was shared between apps, so they could choose to use whichever app they trusted to share current location.

Re:Open data?

[thegarbz]

and perhaps a network of people registered for CPR that was shared between apps

Easier solution. Just make CPR / first aid a mandatory course for all sorts of common things. Where I studied it was mandatory for University graduation. In my profession it's mandatory for my registration. In the next country over it's mandatory when you get and renew your drivers license.

The fact that you could keel over and be in a situation where there's no a CPR trained person in line of sight and no AED unit easily available is a situation that simply should not exist these days.

Shit forget the CPR, just put AEDs everywhere, the units will talk untrained people through CPR, and untrained help is better than no help at all.

Finally

[plopez]

A mobile app that actually does something useful.

Re:of course: more revenue for doctors, hospitals

[muecksteiner]

The thing is, with proper first aid (to wit, competently done CPR from the get-go), the "reasonable recovery" rate is significantly higher than just 2%. Of course, it is important to realise that with current medical technology, it will never get any higher than ~20% or so. I have the 20% figure from a cardiologist: according to him, 80% of cardiac arrest cases are for reasons that are lethal with our current medical capabilities anyway: even with the best pre-clinical care possible, these will not result in a positive outcome (that is, anything other than, at "best", lingering death).

However, there is quite a difference between 2% and 20%. That amounts to quite a number of people who might yet have a few years (or months, as the case may be) to live *with a decent quality of life* - iff no hypoxic brain damage occurs, that is. So investing effort into improving pre-clinical medical care (and in particular, competent first responders) is not wasted. You never know whether someone you know might fall into the 18% group.