The What and the How of Saving
In my last post, Time: the Problem and the Solution, I discussed the importance of time in saving lives from Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA). Time without action is the problem. Reducing time to first shock is the solution. Combining technology and people is how this is done most effectively.
This belief is central to everything that we do at RescueStat and is encapsulated in our mission and illustrated in our logo. I hope that walking you through each will be an effective and engaging way to make a case for why technology and people must work together to reduce time to shock and thus deliver more effective outcomes.
The Mission:
Every effective organization exists for a particular reason, and this represents the mission of the organization. At RescueStat our mission is incapsulated in two parts – the what (we are trying to accomplish) and the how (we go about accomplishing it).
The What: to Save Lives and Protect Organizations from the Impacts of Sudden Cardiac Arrest
…
The How: by Creating a Culture of First Responders™ Empowered by Life-Saving Technology
Said another way, our goal is to Save Lives and Reduce Risk to Organizations, and this is accomplished by people and technology.
Because our mission is core to everything that we do, we have enshrined it into our logo to constantly remind ourselves and others of its importance.
The Logo…a visual representation of the Mission:
Our logo, shown below, represents four chambers of the heart. Each of the four chambers of a heart is needed to pump life-sustaining blood to the body and the brain. In the same way, we believe that
1) Equipment
2) Organizations
3) People
4) Cultures
are the key components to save lives and reduce risk to organizations when SCA strikes. The first two relate to technology and the second two relate to people. If you remove or deactivate any individual part, you do not have a properly functioning heart or solution. This solution has historically led to survival rates multiples higher than the industry average of less than 10%.
You can think of it like a Venn diagram. The magic takes place in the overlapping center of the heart. The areas outside of the center are where the risk resides to lives and organizations. It’s great that more organizations are focused on acquiring AEDs, but having an AED by itself will not save a life. This is evidenced by the fact that although there are more AEDs in the United States than ever before, the survival rate remains flat at 10%.
Let me explain what I mean through a few common scenarios:
- Your organization has an AED, your people are trained but your AED’s batteries or pads are expired because they have not been inspected or remotely monitored. What’s the point of having an AED if it’s not ready to shock? Your equipment and organization are not ready.
- You have a functioning AED, but your people are not trained to use it. An AED hanging on the wall won’t save a life if people aren’t empowered to grab it off the wall and use it. Your people and culture are not ready.
In summary, I believe that to save more lives we need to reduce the time to first shock. Like the Yin and Yang, combining technology and people leads to a combined output that is greater than the sum of the individual parts. The parts mean little by themselves. An AED won’t save a life without an empowered human to apply it quickly. A human cannot reset a heart without an AED. Bringing the essential parts together is the “magic sauce” in SCA lifesaving. The key task is to “Create a Culture of First Responders™ Empowered by Life-Saving Technology”.