ZOLL and PulsePoint advocate for universally accessible AED registry

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Matt Hogan

ZOLL Medical Corporation

ZOLL AND PULSEPOINT ADVOCATE FOR UNIVERSALLY ACCESSIBLE AED REGISTRY

ZOLL’s donation of the National AED Registry ™ to the Emergency AED Registry, hosted by PulsePoint, optimizes dispatch and citizen responder accessibility to AED locations

September 17, 2024 — PLEASANTON, Calif. — The PulsePoint Foundation, a public non-profit 501(c)(3) that builds public safety applications and maintains the Emergency AED Registry, announced today that ZOLL^®, an Asahi Kasei company that manufactures medical devices and related software solutions, has donated the National AED Registry™ to PulsePoint. ZOLL’s donation will increase emergency call taker access to known AED (automated external defibrillator) locations for use during cardiac arrest call processing.

The donation represents a shared belief that every AED in the U.S. and Canada, regardless of brand, should have the option of being accessible to all communities. Donating the National AED Registry, which was created in 2004 and managed by ZOLL since 2017, to the Emergency AED Registry increases the number of devices that can be identified for nearby need, regardless of manufacturer or whether they are part of a paid service.

“ZOLL is proud to support accessibility to AEDs as a free service,” said Elijah White, president, ZOLL Acute Care Technology. “We encourage AED owners and AED manufacturers to participate in the Emergency AED Registry so that AEDs are more readily available during a cardiac arrest event.”

“Fundamental to our mission to improve cardiac arrest survival rates, PulsePoint has long believed there should be one central repository for AED information, hosted by a neutral non-profit, managed at the local level and free for anyone to use,” said Richard Price, founder and president, PulsePoint Foundation. “ZOLL’s donation of the National AED Registry exemplifies their commitment to improving survival rates from sudden cardiac arrest by making more AEDs available to nearby rescuers through a singular, comprehensive registry available to trained community members and emergency telecommunicators.”

We are very excited about the potential for a free and universally accessible AED registry,” says Dr. Stuart Berger, Citizen CPR Foundation president and medical director, Heart Center, Lurie Children’s Hospital. “Having the ability to know the location of AEDs, and giving emergency dispatchers the opportunity to recommend nearby AED locations to lay rescuers in the setting of an out of hospital cardiac arrest, will be an important next step to improve AED utilization. This endeavor will undoubtedly save lives."

Public access AEDs are used to help only an estimated five percent of all sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) victims – typically only when a device location is clearly visible. Telecommunicator knowledge of the location of nearby AEDs can increase the effective coverage range of each AED from 50 feet (direct line of sight) to 600 feet (available at a brisk one-minute walk). Knowing community AED locations enables emergency communication centers to place these life-saving devices in motion faster and more often.

The Emergency AED Registry, hosted by PulsePoint, is populated and managed by local public safety agencies.

AEDs can be registered by downloading the free PulsePoint AED app or online at AED.new. Public safety agencies can also bulk import existing records.
The Registry also displays collocated resources such as Bleeding Control Kits, Naloxone (Narcan^®) and Epinephrine (EpiPen^®) and supports consumable expiration reminders and manufacturer regulatory notices.
In PulsePoint-connected communities, when a cardiac arrest occurs near a registered AED, subscribers to that device can receive an AED-needed alert requesting they deliver the AED to the reported location. PulsePoint responders typically arrive in less than three minutes.
The Emergency AED Registry is integrated with leading emergency medical dispatch (EMD) solutions allowing telecommunicators to provide callers with the exact location of registered AEDs within a familiar pre-arrival instruction workflow. Similar to providing cardiopulmonary resuscitation instruction (T-CPR), equipping telecommunicators with automated external defibrillator locations (T-AED) can improve outcomes.
PulsePoint provides the Emergency AED Registry free of charge as part of its core mission to improve cardiac arrest. This includes hosting, training, community outreach and the integration into EMD.

Communities can build, manage and mobilize their AED registry by contacting PulsePoint, [email protected]. To learn more about the Emergency AED Registry hosted by PulsePoint visit www.pulsepoint.org/pulsepoint-aed.

About the PulsePoint Foundation

PulsePoint is a public 501(c)(3) non-profit foundation that builds applications for use by public safety agencies to increase community awareness during critical events. The PulsePoint Respond mobile app notifies trained individuals of the nearby need for CPR and the PulsePoint AED registry identifies AED (automated external defibrillator) locations for use by the public and 9-1-1 telecommunicators during emergency call taking. PulsePoint also provides specialized mobile apps for professional responders. Learn more at pulsepoint.org. The free apps are available for download on the App Store and Google Play and are end-to-end FirstNet Certified™ applications. FirstNet Certified™ solutions must demonstrate 99.99% availability and pass independent 3rd party security, data privacy, and performance audits.

About ZOLL

ZOLL, an Asahi Kasei company, develops and markets medical devices and software solutions that help advance emergency care and save lives, while increasing clinical and operational efficiencies. With products for defibrillation and cardiac monitoring, circulation enhancement and CPR feedback, supersaturated oxygen therapy, data management, ventilation, therapeutic temperature management, and sleep apnea diagnosis and treatment, ZOLL provides a comprehensive set of technologies that help clinicians, EMS and fire professionals, as well as lay rescuers, improve patient outcomes in critical cardiopulmonary conditions. For more information, visit www.zoll.com.

Why Knowing AED Locations is Crucial

More than 350,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCA) occur annually in the U.S. making it a leading cause of death. Survival rates nationally for sudden cardiac arrest are less than 10 percent. However, cardiac arrest victims who receive a shock from a publicly-available AED administered by a bystander prior to EMS arrival have 2-3 times better odds of survival to hospital discharge and more favorable outcomes. Without bystander AED use, 70 percent of cardiac arrest patients either die or survive with impaired brain function. Despite the life-saving potential of AEDs, they are of no value if they cannot be located and placed into service during a cardiac emergency.

Copyright © 2024 ZOLL Medical Corporation. All rights reserved. ZOLL is a registered trademark of ZOLL Medical Corporation and/or its affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. Asahi Kasei is a registered trademark of Asahi Kasei Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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