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. 2023 Jul 27;23(1):79.
doi: 10.1186/s12873-023-00849-z.

Characterization of non-cardiac arrest PulsePoint activations in public and private settings

Jennifer Blackwood  1 , Mohamud R Daya  2   3 , Ben Sorenson  3 , Brian Schaeffer  4 , Mike Dawson  4 , Michael Charter  5 , James Mark Nania  4   5   6 , Julie Charbonneau  7 , Jeremy Robertson  7 , Michael Mancera  8 , Chris Carbon  9 , Dawn B Jorgenson  10 , Mengqi Gao  10 , Richard Price  11 , Chris Rosse  12 , Thomas Rea  13   12
Affiliations

Characterization of non-cardiac arrest PulsePoint activations in public and private settings

Jennifer Blackwood et al. BMC Emerg Med. .

Abstract

Background: Geospatial smartphone application alert systems are used in some communities to crowdsource community response for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). Although the clinical focus of this strategy is OHCA, dispatch identification of OHCA is imperfect so that activation may occur for the non-arrest patient. The frequency and clinical profile of such non-arrest patients has not been well-investigated.

Methods: We undertook a prospective 3-year cohort investigation of patients for whom a smartphone geospatial application was activated for suspected OHCA in four United States communities (total population ~1 million). The current investigation evaluates those patients with an activation for suspected OHCA who did not experience cardiac arrest. The volunteer response cohort included off-duty, volunteer public safety personnel (verified responders) notified regardless of location (public or private) and laypersons notified to public locations. The study linked the smartphone application information with the EMS records to report the frequency, condition type, and EMS treatment for these non-arrest patients.

Results: Of 1779 calls where volunteers were activated, 756 had suffered OHCA, resulting in 1023 non-arrest patients for study evaluation. The most common EMS assessments were syncope (15.9%, n=163), altered mental status (15.5%, n=159), seizure (14.3%, n=146), overdose (13.0%, n=133), and choking (10.5%, n=107). The assessment distribution was similar for private and public locations. Overall, the most common EMS interventions included placement of an intravenous line (43.1%, n=441), 12-Lead ECG(27.9%, n=285), naloxone treatment (9.8%, n=100), airway or ventilation assistance (8.7%, n=89), and oxygen administration (6.6%, n=68).

Conclusions: More than half of patients activated for suspected OHCA had conditions other than cardiac arrest. A subset of these conditions may benefit from earlier care that could be provided by both layperson and public safety volunteers if they were appropriately trained and equipped.

Keywords: Crowdsourcing; Emergency medical services; Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest; Prehospital; Social media.

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Conflict of interest statement

Drs. Jorgenson and Gao are employees of Philips Medical. Mr. Price is an employee of PulsePoint. Research for the current investigation is supported by a grant provided by the Philips Foundation for which Ms. Blackwood received funding. All other authors declare that they have no competing interests.

AEDs were also generously provided by Philips Medical to participating Verified Responder agencies.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Flow diagram of activations for OHCA and non-OHCA conditions
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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