Santa Barbara Fire Integrates PulsePoint App

Source: Santa Barbara City Fire Department

The Santa Barbara City Fire Department, with generous support from the Santa Barbara Firefighters Alliance, announces the adoption of PulsePoint in the City of Santa Barbara. This technology will further the City’s commitment to creating a healthy and engaged community. PulsePoint will be debuted at the City Council meeting on October 22 at 2:00 pm.

In conjunction with the PulsePoint kickoff, October is Sudden Cardiac Arrest Awareness Month. City Council will be proclaiming their support of citizen engagement and community health. The Fire Department will be launching an annual campaign to promote and inform citizens of the dangers of cardiac arrest and importance of bystander CPR.

PulsePoint Respond is a free-to-download mobile app that empowers everyday citizens to provide life‐saving assistance to victims of sudden cardiac arrest (SCA). PulsePoint subscribers, who have indicated they are trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and willing to assist in an emergency, are notified if someone nearby is having a SCA and may require CPR. This alert takes place as firefighters and paramedics are dispatched to the emergency. The application also directs potential citizen rescuers to the exact location of the closest Automatic External Defibrillator (AED).

The companion app, PulsePoint AED, allows offices and businesses to note the locations of AEDs so that citizen and emergency responders can use the AED closest to them when a cardiac emergency occurs. The community is encouraged to help build the registry by using PulsePoint AED to identify the location of an AED including a photo. This information is then forwarded to the fire department to verify the location. The AED location is then made available to dispatchers and responders.

Fire Chief Eric Nickel noted, “We look forward to partnering with the community to increase bystander involvement in life-threatening medical calls by increasing the use of Citizen CPR and AED use. PulsePoint keeps the community informed, in real time, of all emergency activities. It gives our residents and visitors the ability to know when a cardiac arrest is occurring close by, locate AEDs in the area, and perform potentially lifesaving CPR while our personnel respond to the scene.” In 2018, the Santa Barbara City Fire Department responded to 10,340 incidents that included 404 cardiac arrest events.

In addition to nearby CPR-needed notifications, PulsePoint subscribers can follow their local fire department and choose to be notified of significant events. These informational notifications provide an early and automatic warning to local threats such as wildland fires, flooding and utility emergencies. Santa Barbara City Fire Department and the Firefighters Alliance feel that improving situational awareness with PulsePoint can help build safer, stronger, and more resilient communities.

Santa Barbara City already boasts a 50% cardiac arrest save rate, one of the highest in the United States. The Santa Barbara Fire Department has deployed cutting edge resuscitation techniques for several years. The addition of early community CPR and AED use will improve citizen survival. Chief Nickel said, “The Fire Department and community appreciate the contribution of the Firefighters Alliance in providing this life-saving PulsePoint technology to the City of Santa Barbara.”

About the Firefighters Alliance

A local 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, Santa Barbara Firefighters Alliance ensures the safety of our community by raising funds to purchase much needed, unbudgeted, state-of-the-art equipment to enhance the effectiveness of our city and county firefighters in their work to protect all of us. Web address: www.sbfire.org 

About Sudden Cardiac Arrest
Although a heart attack can lead to sudden cardiac arrest (SCA), the two are not the same. SCA is when the heart malfunctions and suddenly stops beating, whereas a heart attack is when blood flow to the heart is blocked, but the heart continues to beat. Survival rates nationally for SCA are less than eight percent, and only about a third of SCA victims receive bystander CPR. Without CPR, brain damage or death can occur in minutes. The American Heart Association estimates that effective bystander CPR, provided immediately after SCA, can double or triple a person’s chance of survival.

About the PulsePoint Foundation

PulsePoint is a 501(c)(3) public non-profit foundation based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Through the use of location-aware mobile devices, PulsePoint builds applications that work with local public safety agencies to improve communications with citizens and professional emergency responders, increase civic engagement and empower the community to help reduce the millions of annual deaths from sudden cardiac arrest. Learn more at pulsepoint.org or join the conversation at Facebook andTwitter. The free app is available for download on the App Store and Google Play.