Sudden cardiac arrest: Using IoT technology to save lives
Ludovico Fassati, head of Vodafone IoT Americas, Vodafone Business, discusses the need for Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) and the technology behind them.
In Europe, 20% of deaths are caused by sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) - more deaths than from breast cancer, lung cancer, colon cancer, and prostate cancer combined. SCA is lethal within minutes if left untreated and survival rates are presently only 5-20%.
Little is known about sudden cardiac arrest and there aren’t any effective preventative treatments available. Some people argue that a healthy lifestyle reduces risk, but a Japanese study found 2.18 per 100,000 marathon runners have an SCA. Even the youngest and healthiest people are at risk, something that was emphasised when footballer Christian Eriksen suffered an attack during Euro 2020.
The facts are devastating but using the Internet of Things (IoT) there is a way to alleviate the problem and save lives.
Access to an AED
The most effective way to improve the survival rates for SCA is to ensure that homes and public spaces have access to an automated external defibrillator (AED). AEDs are lightweight devices that deliver an electric shock to the heart and have been proven to save many lives if used in time. Between 2005 and 2017, the Japanese utilised a rapid-response system for marathon runners at official events.
Paramedics on bicycles were equipped with AEDs to support almost two million runners, dealing with 30 cardiac arrests in the 12-year period. The paramedics managed to resuscitate 28 of 30 runners who had a cardiac arrest using AEDs. The two runners that did not survive didn’t have timely access to a defibrillator, highlighting just how effective these devices are.
Proximity to an AED is key and every second counts. During the Japanese study, the marathon runners had 100% survivability when the shocks were delivered within 2.2 minutes. In short, as one study phrased it, it’s a “lottery”: You win the lottery if you have proximity to a defibrillator, but you lose if one is too far away.
More and more public spaces do provide AEDs, which is a great start. Places like gyms and aeroplanes are usually equipped with an AED, meaning there is a good chance of survival in those environments. But unfortunately, it is estimated that 80% of SCAs happen at home – meaning many are facing the lottery. To get ahead of the SCA problem, we must put AEDS in our homes and offices, as well as making them affordable, connected, and highly portable.
Connectivity is key
Many companies are looking for ways to make AEDs more accessible world-wide. One example is the US medtech startup, HeartHero, which created an AED called Elliot. Elliot is rugged, portable, and affordable, but more importantly it is a connected device that can communicate with first responders.
When somebody suffers an SCA and you place the HeartHero Elliot electrodes on the patient, the device detects the heart rhythm, and a built-in artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm will use the reading to determine whether an electrical shock is needed. On top of this, the Elliot’s onboard connectivity means that it can auto-notify emergency services and provide the GPS location of the patient. The device provides not only x and y coordinates, but also the z axis to indicate the altitude from which the GPS reading is being sent. That helps emergency responders in multi-story buildings, by providing the floor on which an emergency is taking place.
Vodafone provides the vital link to those outside services with its necessary Internet of Things (IoT) component. This IoT component provides advanced data and global connectivity abilities, which means Vodafone can provide network connectivity for HeartHero in over 100 countries enabling Elliot to be taken on vacation anywhere in the world.
The IoT component also means that the Elliot’s barrier to entry in the workplace is lessened. Typical AEDs usually require constant monitoring to ensure that they are fully functional, but the Elliot is automatically monitored. This takes a lot of pressure away from office managers since they can manage one machine or a thousand from a single account.
As the world looks to increase AED accessibility, it is vital to understand the advantages provided by IoT. Without this advanced technology, Elliot would not be able to provide the automated assistance to self-notify emergency services and provide the GPS location of the patient no matter where they are.