Abstract Body (Do not enter title and authors here): Introduction- Cardiac arrest is an emergency that requires action via timely administration of CPR and AED use. PulsePoint is a phone application that alerts layperson users of nearby cardiac arrest events allowing them to provide aid before first responders arrive. Hospitals already have cardiac arrest protocols and are therefore excluded from PulsePoint. However, healthcare adjacent facilities (HAFS), locations that provide medical services without being inpatient treatment centers, may or may not have cardiac arrest protocols. It is unknown whether PulsePoint layperson dispatch to HAFS would be beneficial for CPR response or AED retrieval.
Hypothesis- HAFS already have internal cardiac arrest response protocols. The same facilities can make AEDs available in nearby areas.
Goal- Categorize HAFS related to cardiac arrest response or AED retrieval for PulsePoint alerts.
Methods- We retrieved 940 records from the Allegheny County, PA PulsePoint deployment from 2022-2023, including only events occurring in public locations classified as HAFS. Health care adjacency was manually determined by a single reviewer, using a primary criterion of providing health care services but excluding inpatient facilities. The team contacted each site via telephone to administer a standardized survey querying the facility’s cardiac arrest response procedure, presence of an AED, and whether PulsePoint responders could enter their facility in response to an emergency.
Results- Of the 108 HAFS identified, 46 (42.6%) completed the phone survey and 44/46 (95.7%) have a cardiac arrest response protocol. Additionally, 39/46 (84.8%) of facilities have an AED on-site and 100% of those facilities have staff present who are trained in AED use. A total of 5/46 (10.9%) facilities were aware of or had staff who were aware of PulsePoint. Permission for PulsePoint responders to enter their facility 9/46 (19.6%) was low, but AED use in the nearby community was higher at 25/46 (54.3%).
Conclusion- The majority of HAFS have existing cardiac arrest protocols and AEDs available. Dispatch of PulsePoint volunteers to HAFS may be inefficient, however, willingness to provide AEDs suggests that HAFS could play a supportive role to bystander cardiac arrest response. Future steps would best focus on exploring means to overcome low survey participation to properly characterize response protocols, investigating individualized location designation within PulsePoint, and increasing knowledge of PulsePoint.