EP Lab Digest - January 2008 - (Page 6) COVER STORY JANUARY AN AED FOR EVERY SCHOOL Continued from cover I then thought to myself “Why are we stopping here?” I joined a group called the National Center for Early Defibrillation, which was amalgamated with people who had done similar initiatives, although most of them were people who had lost their children to cardiac arrest. Some of the people I met were John and Karen Acompora, who lost their son Louis in 2000. Louis died from commotio cortis after being struck in the chest by a lacrosse ball during a game. The Acomporas turned their tragedy around when they helped create the Louis Law, which required that every high school in the state of New York have an AED. Later John Acompora and I went to Capitol Hill to discuss the issue of AEDs in schools, but it became clear to us that if we weren’t one of the congressperson’s or senator’s constituents, they couldn’t help us. The common thread was that this had to be done at a grassroots level. Even after what we accomplished in Summit County, nobody two counties over knew anything about our initiative. To have every community in the country have this manifest was a virtual impossibility. Usually when there is a death of a child, schools are more open to having AEDs; however, for those schools that haven’t had that happen to them, it can at times be difficult to convince them to purchase an AED. I needed a plan. to each school? How much did the Ohio AED program cost to implement? Was AED training provided as well? To create the program, I took the best of all the other statewide programs and came up with what I believed to be the first comprehensive AED program for the state of Ohio.The plan: 1) covers the cost of training of five individuals and makes sure that training occurs (the worst thing you could do is just plop an AED into a school); 2) covers the cost of the defibrillator; 3) aligns the local paramedics with the school so that they know there is an AED at the school; and 4) also notifies the local 911 service to be aware that if someone calls from a school saying “someone has collapsed,” the first thing the 911 operator will tell them is to go get the AED and where it is located in the school. The next task was to come up with the funding. The legislators in our state embraced this program with near unanimity, realizing that it was a very important thing to do. The first grant that we received from legislature was for $2.5 million. As we were proposing this to the various legislators, children kept dying from cardiac arrest in the state of Ohio. Unfortunately, Ohio has the second highest death rate among children in the U.S. In the first phase of this initiative we placed 2,270 defibrillators (which covered training, cost, etc.) in schools throughout the state. In fact, we oftentimes didn’t have to pay for training because the local paramedics in the community saw this as a great community effort and embraced it as such. They would much rather arrive at a school and find an individual sitting up and talking to them who had been successfully shocked out of his or her heart rhythm disturbance, than see a child who is not responding and perhaps vegetative. The program was also accepted by many different organizations in the state, such as the Department of Health and the Department of Education. I even got the trial lawyers to send me a letter that they were in support of the AED program, because one of the biggest stumbling blocks is the liability concern, that is,“it’s not my job — we’ll just wait for the paramedics.” We all know that doesn’t work, because for every minute that someone is in cardiac arrest or ventricular fibrillation, his or her chance of survival drops by up to 10 percent. Nationwide the average response time is about 8 to 12 minutes, depending on where you are, which is I’m hoping that we can use Ohio’s AED program as a template for other states; it would be silly to reinvent the wheel at this point. why so precious few people survive a cardiac arrest. We went back to the state a year later and told them we had some great responses and a number of saves, so the rest of the money was granted — a total of $5 million. This was enough to put at least one AED in every single school in the state — from kindergarten through twelfth grades of all public, private, parochial, charter, and vocational schools. We ultimately placed 4,574 AEDs. We finished the first phase in 2005 and the second phase in 2007; in the first phase we used Medtronic’s Physio-Control unit, and in the second phase we used Cardiac Science AEDs. States with the Highest Number of Cardiac Arrests in Schools*: 1. Texas 2. Ohio 3. Pennsylvania 4. California 5. New York 6. Florida * Information was obtained from Dr. Jonathan Drezner from the University of Washington. Dr. Drezner is also a member of Parent Heart Watch. Have you encountered any opposition about the AED program? It was very difficult finding out which schools did not have an AED — there was no registry and no one was required to notify anyone whether or not they had an AED. We sent out about four batches of postcards to every principal and superintendent announcing the next phase. Many schools jumped on board, but there were some schools that we really didn't have information on about whether or not they had AEDs, so I called every single one of them, and we’re talking about hundreds of schools! Many of them already had AEDs, which is why they didn’t apply. However, there were some that didn’t have an AED, and despite our encouragement, decided not to get an AED, which to me was very disappointing. I would guesstimate about 300 schools in Ohio still do not have an AED because of this. So my goal of putting an AED in every single school met with a few that were just very resistant. I just hope and pray that nothing ever happens in one of those schools, because I believe the liability now is in not having an AED. Every school day 20 percent of the adult and child population are in schools, so it’s very important that we get AEDs in these locations. Having said that, when we announced a couple of weeks ago that this initiative was complete, several schools requested a second AED, so we provided them Were you aware of any other states that had similar AED programs for schools? The Acomporas created the first statewide AED program in the United States. Their NY mandate to place AEDs in all public schools (K-12) was unfunded. It included training as a requisite. Each school had to figure out which AED to purchase, so if one school was calling one AED company and another school was calling another company, they weren’t going to get as good a price as they would have if they had bought in bulk. In the state of Pennsylvania, the Moyers, who lost their 15-year-old son Greg, got the state to purchase two AEDs for every school district — not every school, but every school district. It was a great start, but one school district might have 30 schools. with a second one with the state funding that we had left over. In fact, we still have some schools that didn’t meet the deadline that are now calling on a daily basis saying “we’ve finally done it, where is our AED” and we’ve had to tell them that the initiative is complete. Fortunately, Akron General Medical Center, which administered both phases, has been very gracious.They used as little of the administrative fee as possible, and with the money left over, the hospital is purchasing AEDs for those schools. I’m hoping that we can use Ohio’s AED program as a template for other states; it would be silly to reinvent the wheel at this point. I proudly admit that I plagiarized from the great successes of the New York and Pennsylvania AED programs. They are to be commended for forging the path for the rest of us to follow. How many people have been saved in Ohio from AEDs now located on a school campuses? We’ve had 12 saves in the state of Ohio since this initiative started. In the past three months there have been three children in Ohio who have had a sudden cardiac arrest; sadly, one of them did not make it, but the other two did. Perhaps the greatest story is from one How does the Ohio AED program work? Which schools received AEDs, and how many were given See AN AED FOR EVERY SCHOOL page 8
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