Lifesaving CPR app seeks thousands to join new King County responder network
Jun 1, 2016, 12:27 PM | Updated: 12:28 pm
The PulsePoint app notifies registered users of a cardiac arrest or medical emergency at the same time medics are dispatched - potentially getting CPR started before medics arrive
When someone has a cardiac arrest, every second counts. If you can do CPR within the first several minutes, the chances of survival increase dramatically.
Even though the Puget Sound area’s Medic One system has one of the highest save rates in the country, it doesn’t matter if medics can’t get there in time. But what if your co-worker or next door neighbor could come to your aid and start CPR in moments?
That’s exactly the purpose of PulsePoint, an app that notifies everyone within a certain area whenever someone calls 911 with a medical emergency.
“If you’re within a quarter mile of a cardiac arrest and you’ve downloaded the app, you’ll receive a notification similar to an Amber Alert and it will give you the exact location and address where that individual is,” said Jan Sprake, the executive director of the Medic One Foundation.
The organization announced Wednesday that it is partnering with the Seattle Fire Department to make PulsePoint available for the first time in King County.
“And hopefully with that app, you will be able to respond even before our first responders get there and start CPR immediately because that makes a huge difference in the survival chances of that individual,” Sprake said.
PulsePoint is already in use in more than 1,200 communities in the United States including Spokane, where they’ve had a number of saves thanks to the app — including at a concert.
“You could actually see from the mapping that there were maybe 20 people with the PulsePoint responder at the concert, so they all responded to that as well,” Sprake said.
In order to be truly effective, though, the Seattle Fire Department and Medic One need as many people as possible to download the app and sign up. The goal is at least 15,000 citizen responders.
PulsePoint is free and available for both iPhone and Android, and can be downloaded instantly from the iTunes store and Google Play.
With funding from the Employees Community Fund of Boeing, the Medic One Foundation is working with local fire departments in King and Snohomish counties to bring PulsePoint to additional communities throughout the region.
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