Fairfield County, Ohio Wins Inaugural PulsePoint AED Contest

County will receive $5,000 grant for the purchase of public defibrillators.

Pleasanton, Calif. (November 30, 2021)—The PulsePoint Foundation, a public non-profit 501(c)(3), announced today that Fairfield County, Ohio has won the inaugural PulsePoint AED Contest, winning a $5,000 grant to purchase AEDs (Automated External Defibrillators) for public safety staff and/or the community.

The contest took place during the month of October, Sudden Cardiac Arrest Awareness Month, and was eligible to any community using PulsePoint AED to locate and register AEDs. Fairfield County, with the help of Fairfield Medical Center’s Community Heart Watch Committee, collectively registered 238 AEDs at locations throughout the county including schools, government buildings, places of worship and sports centers. Once the newly registered AEDs are vetted by public safety personnel their location will be made available to emergency responders during cardiac emergencies. View this map to see all AEDs registered through PulsePoint AED in Fairfield County. To register additional AEDs download the free PulsePoint AED app or register them online at AED.new.

"It was truly a collaborative effort of EMS, business leaders and hospital staff to register so many AEDs in a single month,” said Teri Watson, Community Outreach Coordinator with Fairfield Medical Center. “Not only is our current AED inventory more accessible to the community, but through the use of PulsePoint, we have mapped where additional devices are needed. The grant monies will help to address this need and make our community more heart safe."

Why Cataloging AED Locations is Crucial
More than 350,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCA) occur annually in the U.S. making it a leading cause of death. Survival rates nationally for sudden cardiac arrest are less than 10 percent. However, cardiac arrest victims who receive a shock from a publicly-available AED administered by a bystander prior to EMS arrival have 2-3 times better odds of survival to hospital discharge and more favorable outcomes. Without bystander AED use, 70 percent of cardiac arrest patients either die or survive with impaired brain function. Despite the life-saving potential of AEDs, they are of no value if they cannot be located and placed into service during a cardiac emergency.

About the PulsePoint Foundation
PulsePoint is a 501(c)(3) non-profit foundation based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Through the use of location-aware mobile devices, PulsePoint is building applications that work with local public safety agencies to improve communications with citizens, increase civic engagement and empower the community to help reduce the millions of annual deaths from sudden cardiac arrest. Learn more at pulsepoint.org or join the conversation at Facebook and Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn. The free app, PulsePoint AED, is available for download on iTunes and Google Play.

Fairfield Medical Center/Community Heart Watch
Based in Lancaster, OH, Fairfield Medical Center is a not-for-profit healthcare system providing full-service, general acute health services to more than 250,000 residents in Fairfield, Pickaway, Perry, Hocking and Athens counties. Serving the community for more than a century and recognized for multiple years as a Top Workplace by Columbus CEO, Fairfield Medical Center and its team of more than 2,000 individual caregivers is dedicated to providing not only quality healthcare, but a positive patient experience unlike any other. In addition to its two main campuses, FMC has more than a dozen satellite locations specializing in primary care, specialty care, urgent care, lab and imaging services.

​Community Heart Watch, a committee formed in partnership with Fairfield Medical Center, was created with one mission in mind: to save lives across the region. This group of local healthcare providers, educators, first responders and business leaders is determined to improve sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) survival rates throughout southeastern Ohio by increasing community education and awareness, distributing and improving access to automated external defibrillators (AEDs) and empowering bystanders to take action​.​

Media Contacts

Michelle George, Fairfield Medical Center
(740) 689-6636
michellege@fmchealth.org

Shannon Smith, PulsePoint Foundation
(773) 339-7513
shannon@pulsepoint.org