Study Shows New Mobile App Increases Rate of Early CPR by 30 Percent

A new mobile app that can search and alert nearby trained volunteers can help improve a patient's chances of being administered with life-saving early CPR, according to a new study.

Cardiac arrest survival rates are increased when the person suffering is administered with CPR. "We have proved what has been thought before -- that early CPR is associated with improved survival," according to lead author of two related studies published in The New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Jacob Hollenberg, from Karolinska Institute.

Dr. Hollenberg added that a mobile phone application that searches and alerts nearby CPR trained volunteers can increase the rate of administering early CPR by 30 percent.

For the mobile phone app study, scientists enlisted more than 9,000 CPR trained adults in Stockholm to be on call for cardiac arrest emergencies through their phone via a mobile phone positioning system. The country's mobile system alert would then connect any nearby volunteers to people who need assistance.

In the study, there were a total of 667 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests. There were 306 patients in the intervention group and 361 patients in the control group. Scientists found that when the system was activated, 62 percent of patients were given CPR from alerted nearby volunteers and only about 48 percent received CPR from the control group.

The mobile CPR application did not yield any significant increase on the survival rate of patients, according to Live Science. But, the scientists said that further research will have to be conducted on a larger scale to fully evaluate its impact.

In the editorial that accompanied the study published by Drs. Comilla Sasson and David Magid from University of Colorado, the researchers noted that there are hurdles that need to be addressed should the system be implemented in the future.

"Most 911 dispatch centers in the United States cannot automatically identify call locations from cell phones and cannot send or receive text messages," they said. "No single database exists to register phone numbers of trained volunteers. Lay volunteers may be reluctant to allow dispatchers to have constant access to their location or fear being sued if they do not respond to a call."

However, they believe that the system could improve the outcome of cardiac arrest emergencies.

"We believe that many people will welcome the opportunity to respond. If we can send these volunteers to the right place at the right time, we may finally improve rates of survival after out-of-hospital cardiac and realize the public health potential of bystander-initiated CPR," they concluded.

According to Reuters, there are approximately 420,000 people in the U.S. suffering from out-of-hospital cardiac arrests every year. The researchers noted that the 30-day survival rate is highest when CPR is administered within three minutes after the patient collapsed.