One of the most difficult facets of life is making important decisions in the face of uncertainty. Choosing where to step on paths of scholarship, careers, and relationships is a daunting lifelong struggle. We might find ourselves tempted to plant our feet instead of progressing onward, but time only marches forward, pulling us along with it.
Deciding not to act is itself a decision.
In military terms, a strategist’s uncertainty of both enemy and allied capacity, positions, and willingness to engage is referred to as the fog of war. When human life and livelihood is at stake, how can tough calls be made when we know so little?
For this reason, scouts have been a fundamental aspect of warfare for all of human history. From the swift-footed lookouts of hunter-gatherer tribes to Caesar’s horse-riding exploratores to the Royal Air Force’s use of scouting airplanes above the skies of WWI’s battlefields just 10 years after their invention, a pattern emerges: more information on the battlefield leads to greater military success.
Good intentions cannot make up for bad information in making decisions which will affect the lives of so many.
In the United States, 356,000 out-of-hospital sudden cardiac arrests (SCA) occur every year, with 90% of them being fatal without treatment.1 SCA can strike anywhere, at any time: young and old, athletes and office workers, employees and customers.
Make no mistake, we are at war with sudden cardiac arrest.
The fog of war between us and SCA lies in the uncertainty of when, where, and whom it will strike. Preventative clinical screening for underlying risk factors such as arrythmia, congenital heart disease, and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (heart muscle disease) should be our first line of defense.2
Still, screening won’t pick up these risks in every case, and SCA can be caused by more than heart disease, including sudden blows to the chest, electrocution, medications, or other unpredictable events.
Sudden cardiac arrest occurs when a mismatch in electrical signals from the nervous system to the heart occurs, causing the heart to stop beating as normal. This results in irregular twitching in parts of the heart known as ventricular fibrillation, or a complete stop of beating at all.
The best immediate treatment of fibrillation is a machine which de-fibrillates, returning the heart to a regular beat. Defibrillators read the heart’s electrical information with an electrocardiogram and provide a regulating shock if the device deems it necessary.
Automated external defibrillators (AEDs) need to be maintained and inspected to ensure they are ready to use in an emergency. All AEDs have electrode pads and batteries which need to be replaced as they expire. If an AED is damaged or has old equipment it may not work when it needs to.
Though AEDs are designed to be easily used by anyone by providing audiovisual instructions, training in AED use and in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) further improves survival chances. Successful CPR keeps blood and oxygen circulating the body, forestalling death while an AED is found and emergency services are contacted.
This is the fog in the war with sudden cardiac arrest: how confident are you about the following?
- Have you sought pre-screening for SCA risk factors?
- Do you know where your nearest AED is? Is this AED ready for use?
- Are you trained in CPR/AED use? Are those around you trained?
- How quickly would you or someone nearby be able to provide treatment to an SCA victim?
The mission of AED programs is to provide the equipment and knowledge necessary to save lives and cut through the fog of war. Even high confidence in the questions above can be met with some uncertainty: maybe you have no family records of SCA risk factors, but you have not done an ECG test to determine these risks for your own heart. Maybe you received training two years ago, but your certification is expiring. Maybe your company owns an AED, but it is over five years old and has expired equipment.
Understanding that more information leads to greater success on the battlefield against sudden cardiac arrest, RescueStat has developed Apollo Program Management and Scout Remote Monitoring System.
ApolloPM is an online portal where you can record information AED inspections, search AED and CPR equipment and training expiration dates, access AED prescriptions, and report AED use to a licensed cardiologist for event review.
ScoutRMS devices, like human scouts before a battle, are there to provide information to on your preparedness in case an event occurs. Once a ScoutRMS device has been setup, it continuously monitors your AED and determines whether your AED is ready for use, reporting any irregularities to ApolloPM or other AED management program though a cellular signal. ScoutRMS is compatible with most AEDs on the market and can be placed in a cabinet or carrying case for mobile needs.
Together, both ScoutRMS and ApolloPM provide quick, accurate information on the status of AEDs and training. When CPR is done by trained responders and a working AED is provided, the SCA survival rate increases from 10% to as much as 90%, decreasing by 10% for every minute treatment is delayed.3 It’s time to cut through uncertainty and know you’re prepared.