An app to keep: smartphone-based dispatch of community first responder to cardiac arrest.

Background: Smartphone-based alerting of community first responders to out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) is associated with enhanced survival. Community first responders are volunteers, who are dispatched by the emergency dispatch centre, if they are in close proximity to an OHCA to decrease time until first chest compression. For a community first responder system to be successful, it is essential to recruit and retain as many qualified community first responders as possible.

Smartphone-based dispatch of community first responders to out-of-hospital cardiac arrest - statements from an international consensus conference.

Background: Over the past decade Smartphone-based activation (SBA) of Community First Responders (CFR) to out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCA) has gained much attention and popularity throughout Europe. Various programmes have been established, and interestingly there are considerable differences in technology, responder spectrum and the degree of integration into the prehospital emergency services. It is unclear whether these dissimilarities affect outcome.