Ivor Kovic

Mobile phone in the Chain of Survival

Each day, approximately 750 Europeans suffer from an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, which presents a large public health problem. In such circumstances, rapid activation of the Chain of Survival with effective and continuous realisation of its four links can have a large impact on survival. Mobile phones, which have become the most ubiquitous piece of modern technology, possess a strong potential to strengthen each link of the chain. Initially, they can be used to educate rescuers about appropriate actions performed in each step of the resuscitation process. However, mobile phones can also assume a more active role of helping the rescuer in a real medical emergency. They have a potential to allow for a faster and superior emergency medical services contact, assure a higher quality of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and quicker retrieval of an automated external defibrillator and facilitate a finer post-resuscitation care through telemedical and clinical decision support systems. Smartphones, mobile phones with advanced computing abilities and connectivity, should be considered as medical devices, and their use, among lay rescuers and medical professionals in cardiovascular emergencies, further investigated and strongly encouraged.

A new method of investigating the ergonomics of visual cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) feedback delivery.

The latest European Resuscitation Council guidelines put great mphasis on the importance of delivering quality chest compresions (CC) during CPR in order to improve outcomes of cardiac rrest.1 However, the quality of CC has been found to be subopimal, even when performed by healthcare professionals adhering o older CPR guidelines, which mandated shallower and slower ompressions.2 For this reason, the latest guidelines encourage the se of devices delivering prompts and real-time feedback to resuers regarding the quality of CC.1 Such audiovisual CPR feedback an be incorporated into automatic external defibrillators, manual onitor-defibrillators, standalone devices, and even commercial evices like smartphones.3 Studies have demonstrated that the se of feedback influences CPR performance, in a way that it more losely conforms to recommended guidelines.4 Still, very few studes have investigated and compared different modes of delivering isual CPR feedback. We know little about the differences between PR feedback devices, rescuers’ preferences, as well as the impact n rescuers’ fatigue, pain or injuries potentially introduced by their sage. To simulate various devices offering visual CPR feedback, and nvestigate their ergonomics in diverse scenarios, we devised simple and versatile method based on a smartphone and a ablet computer (Fig. 1). We utilized a Laerdal Resusci Anne®