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. 2021 Feb 1;29(1):29.
doi: 10.1186/s13049-021-00841-1.

Smartphone-based dispatch of community first responders to out-of-hospital cardiac arrest - statements from an international consensus conference

Camilla Metelmann #  1 , Bibiana Metelmann #  2 , Dorothea Kohnen  3 , Peter Brinkrolf  2 , Linn Andelius  4 , Bernd W Böttiger  5 , Roman Burkart  6 , Klaus Hahnenkamp  2 , Mario Krammel  7   8 , Tore Marks  2 , Michael P Müller  9 , Stefan Prasse  10 , Remy Stieglis  11 , Bernd Strickmann  12 , Karl Christian Thies  2   13
Affiliations

Smartphone-based dispatch of community first responders to out-of-hospital cardiac arrest - statements from an international consensus conference

Camilla Metelmann et al. Scand J Trauma Resusc Emerg Med. .

Abstract

Background: Over the past decade Smartphone-based activation (SBA) of Community First Responders (CFR) to out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCA) has gained much attention and popularity throughout Europe. Various programmes have been established, and interestingly there are considerable differences in technology, responder spectrum and the degree of integration into the prehospital emergency services. It is unclear whether these dissimilarities affect outcome. This paper reviews the current state in five European countries, reveals similarities and controversies, and presents consensus statements generated in an international conference with the intention to support public decision making on future strategies for SBA of CFR.

Methods: In a consensus conference a three-step approach was used: (i) presentation of current research from five European countries; (ii) workshops discussing evidence amongst the audience to generate consensus statements; (iii) anonymous real-time voting applying the modified RAND-UCLA Appropriateness method to adopt or reject the statements. The consensus panel aimed to represent all stakeholders involved in this topic.

Results: While 21 of 25 generated statements gained approval, consensus was only found for 5 of them. One statement was rejected but without consensus. Members of the consensus conference confirmed that CFR save lives. They further acknowledged the crucial role of emergency medical control centres and called for nationwide strategies.

Conclusions: Members of the consensus conference acknowledged that smartphone-based activation of CFR to OHCA saves lives. The statements generated by the consensus conference may assist the public, healthcare services and governments to utilise these systems to their full potential, and direct the research community towards fields that still need to be addressed.

Keywords: Citizen responder; Consensus; First responders; Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest; Resuscitation; Smartphone; mHealth.

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Conflict of interest statement

Participation in the consensus process was on a voluntary basis. All members of the consensus panel consented to participate in the consensus process and stated their individual conflicts of interests. Need for an approval by the ethics committee was waived.

CM, BM and KT organised the conference. LA has received unrestricted research grants from the Danish foundation TrygFonden. BWB is European Resuscitation Council (ERC) Board Director Science and Research; Chairman of the German Resuscitation Council (GRC); Member of the Advanced Life Support (ALS) Task Force of the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR); Member of the executive committee of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive and Emergency Medicine (DIVI); Associated Editor of the “European Journal of Anaesthesiology (EJA)”, Co-Editor of “Resuscitation”; Editor of the Journal “Notfall + Rettungsmedizin”. MPM is chair of the charity organisation “Region of Lifesavers”, member of the Executive Committee of the German Resuscitation Council (GRC) and holds shares at SmartResQ ApS. SP is working with the company “Mobile Retter e.V.”, which offers a smartphone app to alert Community First Responders. All other authors state, that they have no conflicts of interest.

Comment in

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