GoodSAM has been integrated with London Ambulance Service since 2015, and its use has steadily grown since then. Its introduction into other ambulance services across England and in Victoria, Australia began in 2017 and continues to date. As indicated in our article [
[1]
], the first evaluation work on GoodSAM’s efficacy was due to start at the end of 2017. It is now underway.We thank the authors for their comments and are heartened to hear of their positive experience with their own system in Paris. We will endeavor to answer their questions as fully as possible.
First: Awareness of the app has been facilitated by interactions with local ambulance services, CPR training organisations and national media coverage. We hope that as the system becomes more widespread the number of responders will continue to grow. We are examining the populations that the participants come from during our evaluation work.
Second: A GoodSAM notification is sent to a responder for cardiac arrests occurring in both public and private places. We are investigating notification acceptance rates as part of our evaluation work. Legal protections vary across the world and users are advised to check the situation in their own country.
Third: There are many barriers to AED use [
[2]
] and effective interventions to overcome these barriers must improve bystanders’ capability, opportunity and motivation to use an AED [[3]
]. GoodSAM shares information about AED locations with the local ambulance service, and vice-versa. Verification of an AED location is usually undertaken by the local ambulance service. We anticipate that there are many AEDs in the community that are not known to GoodSAM or the local ambulance service. However, users can add location-enabled photographs of AEDs to the GoodSAM database directly through the app.- Smith C.M.
- Perkins G.D.
Improving bystander defibrillation for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest: capability, opportunity and motivation.
Resuscitation. 2018; ([e-pub ahead of print])https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resuscitation.2018.01.006
Conflict of interest statement
MHW is the co-founder and Medical Director at GoodSAM. CMS and GDP are conducting an evaluation of GoodSAM at the University of Warwick, UK. CMS is a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Doctoral Research Fellow and has a volunteer role at the Resuscitation Council (UK). GDP is an (NIHR) Senior Investigator and is supported by grants from NIHR, Resuscitation Council (UK) and the British Heart Foundation.
References
- The use of trained volunteers in the response to out-of-hospital cardiac arrest – the GoodSAM experience.Resuscitation. 2017; 121: 123-126
- Barriers and facilitators to public access defibrillation in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest –a systematic review.Eur Heart J Qual Care Clin Outcomes. 2017; 3: 264-273
- Improving bystander defibrillation for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest: capability, opportunity and motivation.Resuscitation. 2018; ([e-pub ahead of print])https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resuscitation.2018.01.006
Article info
Publication history
Received:
February 1,
2018
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Copyright
© 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
