BY TYLER M. FRANCISCHINE

UF Health, Alachua County and city of Gainesville emergency first responders announced the launch of a smartphone app that alerts individuals to a nearby cardiac emergency and empowers them to help.

PulsePoint Respond alerts citizens trained in CPR to the whereabouts of an individual suffering sudden cardiac arrest so they’re able to deliver hands-only chest compressions until emergency medical teams arrive. The app, which does not alert participants to a cardiac arrest occurring in a private residence, provides directions to the person in need.

The CPR app was integrated into the county’s Combined Communications Center in August as part of an internal launch. Once area smartphone users download PulsePoint Respond, the 911 center triggers the app to immediately alert citizen rescuers of the need for CPR at the same time paramedics are dispatched. The app also guides users in the delivery of CPR and directs bystanders to the exact location of the closest publicly accessible automated external defibrillator, or AED.

PulsePoint Respond is available throughout Alachua County thanks to support from the UF College of Medicine’s Jerome H. Modell, M.D., Professorship of Anesthesiology fund. UF Health officials hope the availability and use of the app will help duplicate the 50 percent increased survival rates from cardiac arrest experienced by other communities that have implemented this system.

“Our community is the perfect place to activate the PulsePoint program because we are fortunate to have a large number of citizens with health care training,” said David R. Nelson, M.D., interim senior vice president for health affairs at UF and president of UF Health. “If most of us participate, we can double the survival rate from out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, as experienced by other communities with this smartphone app.”

Visit pulsepoint.org/pulsepoint-respond/ for more information on the app. To download PulsePoint Respond, visit the Google Play Store or Apple App Store.