Portland Fire & Rescue announced Thursday that it had joined more than a dozen other Oregon fire agencies in using PulsePoint, a smartphone application that notifies users when someone goes into sudden cardiac arrest in a nearby public place.
More than 2 million people in Washington, Clackamas, Clark and Multnomah counties are now covered by the life-saving app, which is hooked in to the region's emergency dispatch systems. Residents can sign up to receive notifications.
PulsePoint is intended to boost cardiac arrest survival rates by prompting people trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation to react when someone collapses in a public place. It also alerts users to the nearest Automated External Defibrillator, or AED, which can help jumpstart a stopped heart.
If a bystander provides effective CPR immediately after sudden cardiac arrest, the victim's chance of survival can double or triple, according to the American Heart Association.
But only about one-third of sudden cardiac arrest victims receive CPR from a bystander, and fewer than 1 in 10 of those who suffer cardiac arrest outside of the hospital survive, the association said.
Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue became the first Oregon fire agency to use PulsePoint in January 2013, and it has seen the app save a life.
Scott Brawner, an off-duty Tualatin Valley firefighter-paramedic, received a push notification from PulsePoint while he was at his Clackamas-area gym one day in May 2014.
He used the map to navigate to the parking lot, where a security guard had found a man lying unconscious.
Brawner immediately began hands-only CPR and kept it up until Clackamas County paramedics arrived. The patient, 57-year-old Drew Basse, survived.
"If it's one life saved, we think it's worth it," said Cassandra Ulven, a Tualatin Valley spokeswoman. "For us, at least in our community, it's about strengthening the chain of survival."
Tualatin Valley now has more than 14,000 subscribers through PulsePoint. That dramatically expands the web of lifesavers beyond the 21 fire stations the district has scattered across 210 square miles, Ulven said.
The district is now in talks with PulsePoint about ways to add notifications for sudden cardiac arrests that occur in a residential setting. More than 8 in 10 cardiac arrests happen while the victim is at home, according to the American Heart Association.
Portland had been closely watching Tualatin Valley's experience with the app, but it had a harder time raising the money to use it, said spokesman Lt. Rich Tyler.
The PulsePoint Foundation charges agencies a $10,000 initial fee and an annual licensing fee that ranges from $8,000 to $28,000, depending on the size of the population served.
Portland Fire & Rescue applied for an innovation grant from the city about a year ago, Tyler said.
"We obviously don't want to spend money on something that doesn't work," he said. "The upside of Washington County having the app, along with Portland and Clackamas County, is that it is a larger region that is working together."
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