iRescU announced the winners of its inaugural Scavenger Hunt Challenges today for geolocating Automated External Defibrillators (AED)- heart starting devices - in the community. iRescU is a new public education and information initiative under development to help save lives, using crowd sourcing, cloud-based technology and smartphones to geolocate AEDs and update one's CPR skills. iRescU is to be available free on smartphones on all platforms.
The iRescU Project was founded by Dr. Nadine Levick. She is an emergency room physician with a public health degree from Johns Hopkins, chair of the Women’s Heart Foundation Be A Lifesaver program and executive director of the EMS Safety Foundation.
iRescU’s first AED Scavenger Hunt Challenge was launched during the 2011 American Heart Association Conference in November. Geolocating 37 AEDs, the first place winner was Linda Cotter-Forbes of Rhinebeck, NY. This set a new world record for any one-person effort geolocating AEDs during a brief AED scavenger hunt.
iRescU’s second Challenge was launched during the December 2011 mHealth Summit. Linda encouraged her colleagues, and 81 AEDs were geolocated by Kim, also of Rhinebeck, NY, becoming the first place winner. The second place winner, Brittany Bogle, a graduate student attending college in Chicago, single handedly located 68 AEDs all over the country.
“As impressive as this record breaking effort might be, it is but a drop in the ocean, compared to the exponential increase in the power of iRescU with collaborations involving organizations such as Foursquare”, says Dr. Levick, who is currently exploring such relationships and opportunities to expand the reach and impact of this lifesaving iRescU technology tool.
For Linda Cotter-Forbes, this win has special meaning. “If it weren’t for quickly locating an AED in 2005 when my daughter Kaitlin dropped unconscious at the age of 15 from sudden cardiac arrest while playing softball, she wouldn’t be here today”, she said. "Her high school was prepared and their quick response with CPR and using an AED saved her life”. Kaitlin continues to live an active life and has resumed her passion -- playing team softball. Kaitlin appears on the cover of ‘You Can Save a Life at School’ – a project to help schools develop a plan for responding to SCA, from the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation, who have donated Linda’s AED prize.
“Every school needs to be prepared to rapidly respond to a SCA emergency, just as Kaitlin’s school was”, says Bonnie Arkus RN, executive director of the Women’s Heart Foundation (WHF) and project manager for the high school-based WHF program: Be A Life Saver – learn CPR and AED use. For more information, go to
www.womensheart.org.  “Of the estimated 350,000 people who experience out-of-hospital sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) each year in the United States, only 8% survive. That is about 1,000 deaths each day,” says Dr. Nadine Levick. “SCA affects people of all ages, school children to the elderly and all in between,” she said. “These deaths are happening suddenly, without warning, in the home, on the street, at school, in the gym or at work. Studies show that about 80% of SCA victims have a ‘shockable’ heart rhythm”, she said. “This means that a person could return to a normal quality of life if a bystander immediately responds to the victim, performs CPR and delivers a shock to the heart with an AED within three minutes of a victim suffering cardiac arrest and becoming unconscious.”
Dr. Levick points out the major barrier to AED use is public awareness. “Everyone needs to know what an AED is, how it is used and where to locate one when you need it”, she said. Dr. Levick began tackling these issues as a public health crisis in March 2010 when working on an EMS study using smartphones. “It occurred to me – ‘why not use smartphone technology to coach CPR and geolocate AEDs through crowd sourcing, and have the information propagate into a global cloud based database?’ Under the umbrella of the EMS Safety Foundation, she began working on this effort, building a global development team, for the iRescU Project. “My priorities were to create an innovative tool, accessible by smartphone, free to the public, to fill the gaps in the chain of survival where nothing else existed. The goal of iRescU is to save victims of sudden cardiac arrest.”
The iRescU project has currently completed Phase I and II proof of concept. It is actively seeking funds to implement its life saving system at five pilot sites - major cities located throughout the U.S. – led by New York. iRescU was selected for presentation at the prestigious mHealth Summit Tech Demo Pavilion in November 2010, and at the Emergency Cardiac Care Update conference December 2010. iRescU recently presented at the American Heart Association ReSS Symposium in November 2011 and at the 2011 December mHealth Summit. It was at these recent 2011 events that iRescU launched its inaugural AED Scavenger Hunt Challenges to geolocate AEDs using crowd-sourcing, across the nation and also internationally. The winners will be recognized at a media event to promote the development of the global iRescU project at the New York Athletic Club on February 14th, 2012 at 4pm. Mayor Bloomberg has been invited to attend and support the New York City based iRescU project. Prizes for winners were donated by Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation (
http://www.sca-aware.org), Defibtech and Ferno International.
Links:
Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation to present Cardiac Science AED to winner of inaugural iRescU Scavenger Hunt Challenge
The EMS Safety Foundation today announced the winners of its inaugural iRescU Scavenger Hunt Challenges for geolocating Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) in the community. iRescU is a new public education and information initiative under development to help save lives using crowd sourcing, cloud-based technology, and smartphones to geolocate AEDs and update one's CPR skills. The iRescU app will available free on smartphones on all platforms in the near future.
The iRescU app project was developed through collaboration of a global interdisciplinary team, led by Nadine Levick, MD, MPH, of the EMS Safety Foundation.
iRescU’s first AED Scavenger Hunt Challenge was launched during the 2011 American Heart Association Conference in November. The first place winner was Linda Cotter-Forbes of Rhinebeck, NY, who geolocated 37 AEDs. Linda is the mother of Kaitlin Forbes, a survivor who was saved at Rhinebeck, NY, High School in 2005, thanks to her school's foresight and preparation. (Kaitlin's story is featured in the SCA Foundation's You Can Save a Life at School publication, which may be downloaded here.) This set a new world record for any one-person effort geolocating AEDs during a brief (four day) AED scavenger hunt.
Runners up were Linda Dickson, Connie Carmany, Wendy Long, John Brown, and Philip McGovern.
iRescU’s second Challenge was launched during the mHealth Summit in November. Linda encouraged her colleagues, and 81 AEDs were geolocated by Kim, also of Rhinebeck, NY, who became the first place winner. The second place winner, Brittany Bogle, a graduate student attending college in Chicago, single-handedly located 68 AEDs all over the country.
“As impressive as this record breaking effort might be, it is but a drop in the ocean, compared to the exponential increase in the power of iRescU, with collaborations involving organizations such as Foursquare," says Dr. Levick, who is currently exploring such relationships and opportunities to expand the reach and impact of this lifesaving iRescU technology tool.
For Linda Cotter-Forbes, the iRescU Challenge has special meaning. “If it weren’t for quickly locating an AED in 2005 when my daughter Kaitlin dropped unconscious at the age of 15 from sudden cardiac arrest while playing softball, she wouldn’t be here today”, she said. "Her high school was prepared and their quick response with CPR and using an AED saved her life.” Kaitlin continues to live an active life and has resumed her passion--playing team softball.
The estimated 350,000 people who experience out-of-hospital sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) each year in the United States, only 8% survive. That is about 1,000 deaths each day,” says Dr. Nadine Levick. “SCA affects people of all ages, school children to the elderly,” she said. “These deaths happen suddenly, without warning--in the home, on the street, at school, in the gym or at work. Studies show that about 80% of SCA victims have a ‘shockable’ heart rhythm,” she said. “This means that a person could return to a normal quality of life if a bystander immediately responds to the victim, performs CPR, and delivers a shock to the heart with an AED within three minutes of a victim suffering cardiac arrest and becoming unconscious.”
One of the obstacles to AED use is the lack of public awareness. “Everyone needs to know what an AED is, how it is used and where to locate one when you need it," according to Dr. Levick. She began tackling these issues as a public health crisis in March 2010 when working on an EMS study using smartphones. “It occurred to me – ‘why not use smartphone technology to coach CPR and geolocate AEDs through crowd sourcing, and have the information propagate into a global cloud based database?’ Under the umbrella of the EMS Safety Foundation, she began working on this effort, building a global development team, for the iRescU Project. “My priorities were to create an innovative tool, accessible by smartphone, free to the public, to fill the gaps in the chain of survival where nothing else existed. The goal of iRescU is to save victims of sudden cardiac arrest.”
Phase 1 and 2 proof of concept for iRescU has been completed. Next, It will be pilot tested in five major cities in the U.S., including New York City.
iRescU was selected for presentation at the prestigious mHealth Summit Tech Demo Pavilion in November 2010, and at the Emergency Cardiac Care Update conference December 2010. Research on iRescU presented at the American Heart Association ReSS Symposium in November 2011 and at the mHealth Summit in December 2011. It was at these recent 2011 events that iRescU launched its inaugural AED Scavenger Hunt Challenges to geolocate AEDs using crowd-sourcing, across the nation and also internationally.
The winners will be recognized at an awards ceremony at the New York Athletic Club on Valentine's Day. Mayor Bloomberg has been invited. Mary Newman, of the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation, who is a member of the iRescU team, will present an AED to Cotter-Forbes, for her first place win in the inaugural iRescU scavenger hunt. The AED was donated to the SCA Foundation by Cardiac Science. Kaitlin was saved with a Cardiac Science AED.
"We are delighted to recognize Linda Cotter-Forbes for her achievement in reporting the location of so many AEDs in such a brief timeframe," said Newman. "This is a great example of the generosity of survivors and their families who 'pay it forward' in the quest to help save other lives."
