We have a similar system in the Netherlands, only it doesn't use an app. When reporting a heart attack, the emergency response service will dispatch two ambulances and activate the system to summon volunteers that live or work nearby. I believe they get a robot call as well as sms text instructions. Half the volunteers get instructions to pick up a specific AED somewhere first, the other half is instructed to rush to the victim immediately.
I've had the misfortune to gather some anecdotal experience with this system in the past year. In both cases, 4 volunteers showed up very quickly, well before the first ambulance (which in both cases showed up within the allotted 15 minutes of the emergency call). One of the victims was my father in law, who is alive and well today, most likely thanks to the volunteers. Unfortunately, the other one -a friend- was not so lucky.
We have a similar system in Ireland, but where volunteers take shifts on call with an AED. It has been severely scaled back due to COVID-19, but prior to that, volunteers would frequently reach patients with an AED more than 10 minutes before an ambulance arrived in rural areas. We would also provide BLS in the event of anaphylaxis, OD, stroke, attempted suicides, etc. A very effective system.
Seems like a very well working system, with lots of redundancy designed in because of the criticality. Would be interesting to compare between countries. How many dispatch two ambulances, for example
An AED is designed to be used by untrained, dumb, panicking human beings, so while I have no doubt these volunteers have some training, if you ever find yourself near a case and no volunteer coming, don't hesitate to grab it.
On that note, if you work in an office building take note of where they are so you know where to get them if need be.
Anecdote: Three runners showed up in minutes at 4am when someone on my street suffered a cardiac arrest, beating the ambulance by +5 minutes.
There are so many ways to be cynical about the 4% to 16% improvement, but I think this is the most important takeaway:
> “The patient is dead” — meaning his or heart has stopped due to cardiac arrest — “and if you don’t do anything, 9 out of 10 will be dead forever,” he said.
In my advanced cardiac life support training, an EMT once put it this way (addressing some nerves at being responsible for a critical life or death event):
Their heart is stopped - they are dead. You can’t kill them any more dead, you can /only/ bring them back to life. So what’s to be nervous about?
Don’t pick it apart. It’s not hard to pick apart. But thinking about it that way really does help take some of the pressure off and let you focus on doing the deed.
I responded to one of these a year or so ago quite quickly, and EMTs beat me to the scene. Denmark does a really good job of distributing AEDs around neighborhoods, so I think the theory is just to stack up on response opportunities at the moment of a credible alert for better outcomes.
GoodSAM, a similar app for alerting responders to heart-attacks in the UK, was used to coordinate volunteers during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic. Vulnerable people who could not go out to buy groceries for themselves, people dealing with health issues while isolating, etc. were connected with those who could help them. I really believe this kind of infrastructure is a genuine public good, for more reasons than just heart attack response times.
Another thing to note here: When people take a driving licence in Denmark, a CPR certification is mandatory. So a lot of people in Denmark has CPR training, myself included.
First aid training and certificate are mandatory in Germany to obtain a driving license. Also, as you are trained in the first aid, you are now liable by the law to help someone in need of immediate medical aid, in the scope of your training.
Should also be noted that in case the americans on the website are worried about being sued over this; as long as you make any type of effort to the best of your ability, you're fine. Even if you end up killing the patient. These laws are scoped so they only apply if you help someone without expecting payment or reward in exchange.
There is an app that already does this (among a few other emergency services related things) in the US - PulsePoint. I can sign up for nearby CPR needed alerts, and be shown on a map where AEDs are.
I believe it was brought up when I took my last CPR certification 4 years ago, so it’s not exactly new.
It is weird seeing the word CPR in the same sentence as Denmark when not talking about our SSN (which the most common use of "cpr" in Danish, it is short for central person register)..
On a more on-topic note, we have a hell of a lot of the AED devices all around (at least here in the capital). I am within 100 meters of a (public) device at most of my waking hours (most are privately owned by businesses and associations like my home-owner's assoc).
I guess everybody knows this, but 112 is the emergency telephone number in a lot more countries than "just" Denmark [1].
According to Wikipedia, it even works in the US if dialed from a cell phone, by being forwarded to 911 by the network. That I didn't know, since the "cultural presence" of 911 is pretty big even over here in Sweden.
It's part of mobile phone standards to accept several emergency numbers (at least 112 and 911, I think 999 as well), and translate to the local number. That's not always doable with landlines as it might conflict with a longer number, and some countries have short numbers that might conflict as well, but I think that's rare too.
I've had the misfortune to gather some anecdotal experience with this system in the past year. In both cases, 4 volunteers showed up very quickly, well before the first ambulance (which in both cases showed up within the allotted 15 minutes of the emergency call). One of the victims was my father in law, who is alive and well today, most likely thanks to the volunteers. Unfortunately, the other one -a friend- was not so lucky.