911 center asking community to register nearby AEDs for new app partnership

Is there an AED nearby? It’s a routine question dispatchers at the Manatee County 911 Communications Center ask when someone calls to report a cardiac emergency.

But not many people know where the nearest AED, or Automated External Defibrillator, is, said Jacob Saur, Chief of Emergency Communications 911 in Manatee County.

In a cardiac emergency, knowing where the nearest AED is could save a life, he said.

Enter the latest initiative for the 911 Communications Center. With the help of a smartphone app called PulsePoint AED, members of the community, off-duty responders and dispatchers will be able to locate the nearest AED in case of an emergency. They can then find it and provide assistance until EMS arrives.

But they need the community’s help to build the app’s database of available AEDs, which Saur approves before they’re loaded into the app.

“We believe there’s a lot of AEDs out there and we need help from the public to find them,” Saur said. “PulsePoint has the potential to save hundreds of lives in Manatee County.”

They have about 79 AEDS in the system now, but Saur believes there’s 500 to 900 AEDs in Manatee County.

So, when you notice an AED— whether it’s at the gym, the office, or the grocery store — there’s now a way to register it to help build the app and its database.

AEDs can be registered through the PulsePoint AED app or at PulsePoint.org. It will then be entered into the Manatee County database.

Those interested can also download the PulsePoint AED companion app, PulsePoint Respond, which will alert a user if they are within a quarter of a mile of a cardiac arrest incident, Saur said.

It will take time to integrate the growing AED database into the county’s 911 system. When it’s done, the dispatcher won’t have to ask if the caller knows where the nearest AED is, the dispatcher will be able to tell them.

The PulsePoint AED app is already running and accepting AED registrations. Saur expects the integration with the 911 system and the Manatee County-specific PulsePoint Respond app to be ready to fully launch in October.

A fee of $10,000 covers the cost of interfacing the dispatch center to PulsePoint and then tiered annual license fees range from $8,000 to $28,000 based on the population served, according to the PulsePoint website.

This story was originally published August 23, 2017 at 4:07 PM with the headline "911 center asking community to register nearby AEDs for new app partnership."