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A new nonprofit organization has been established to expand the Fire Department cell phone CPR notification app released by the San Ramon Valley Fire Protection District.
The application, a free download for iPhone users, lets volunteers sign up to provide life-saving assistance to victims of Sudden Cardiac Arrest; PulsePoint Foundation has been formed to help make the app available to other areas.
“The app crowd-sources good Samaritans to events where the potential need for bystander CPR is high,” said Fire Chief Richard Price. “The vital work of the PulsePoint Foundation has already begun,” added Price. “PulsePoint is set to begin partnering with nearly two hundred fire and EMS agencies that have expressed interest in deploying the application in their communities.”
The application was pioneered and tested in the San Ramon Valley, but Price and the creators have been hopeful about the possibilities of extending its life saving potential nationwide or even global; forming an external foundation to distribute the app should help speed adoption by other communities.
In addition, Intergraph Corporation, a computer-aided dispatch system vendor, has announced plans to offer the PulsePoint solution to all its accounts, which cover one in twelve people worldwide.
“The combination of PulsePoint’s CPR application and Intergraph’s global leadership in public safety solutions is a perfect match to achieve the ultimate objective of protecting lives,” said Jay Stinson, Intergraph’s vice president and public safety general manager.
The PulsePoint Foundation will be guided by an Advisory Board made up of visionaries in the tech and medical industries, including Dr. Ben Bobrow of the Arizona Department of Health Services, co-founder and co-CEO Dave Duffield of Workday, CIO Tim Ferguson of Northern Kentucky University, CEO Tim O’Reilly of O’Reilly Media, and President Jack Parow of the International Association of Fire Chiefs.
The application has received several international awards including the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA) 2011 VITA Wireless Samaritan Award, a 2011 Computerworld Honors Program Laureate Award for Innovation, an American Heart Association Life Saver Heart Partner Award, and an IADAS Webby Official Honoree award for the Best Use of GPS or Location Technology. The Public Service Announcement designed to promote awareness and adoption of the application also received two Telly Awards.
The San Ramon Valley Fire Protection District and Northern Kentucky University and its College of Informatics have donated all rights from their original work on the app to the foundation.
