A new range of defibrillators has been launched by Hato Hone St John to help communities save lives.
The new defibrillator, often referred to as an AED (Automatic External Defibrillator), is a small device that gives a safe electric shock to someone having a sudden cardiac arrest. By having more of these defibrillators within communities can help more people survive cardiac arrests.
Each year more than 2000 New Zealanders will suffer a cardiac arrest outside of hospital. The use of an AED – also known as defibrillation - is an important addition to CPR. Survival rates for such out-of-hospital arrests can more than double when community responders use an AED.
“What our data tells us is that, for those patients who have an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, only 5 per cent receive defibrillation by someone in the community prior to the ambulance arrival -- and we know one of the largest contributors to improving their odds of survival is early defibrillation,” says Simon Barnett, Head of First Aid Training, Hato Hone St John. “So 5 per cent is pretty low”.
“The big driver for us is trying to get an AED on the market that combines the best of everything – reliability, ease of use, and cost – because we know cost is a barrier to getting them in the community where they should be.”
During the tender process, as well as testing the defibrillators, Hato Hone St John pulled together a group of members of the public with no specific first aid training skills and put them in a make-believe situation where they needed to use each of the AEDs they were testing. St John experts watched to see if these people could follow all the prompts, how long it took them to open the AED, and how long it took to get to the point of shocking the patient.
“There are quite a few different AEDs on the market now and some of them are quite confusing. The new defibrillator we are launching removes this barrier, ensuring they can be used by anyone,” Barnett says. “You don’t need any specific training, not even first aid training. Our new defibrillator provides prompts to the person using it.”
In some cases, Hato Hone St John has seen defibrillators people just couldn’t figure out how to use, so the “patient” in the scenario didn’t receive a shock in a timely manner. With others, it was almost immediately clear what to do. “It was clear we needed to make sure what we chose was really simple for people to follow,” says Barnett.
Many of the different providers out there use fancy words and technical terms, he says, but at the end of the day the people looking at these defibrillators don’t really know the difference.
After a rigorous process, St John came up with two models, X1 and X3. The X1 is a slightly simpler version that is cheaper and has a printed image on the screen. The X3 is an upgraded version which has an LCD screen that enables the user to see instructions as well as hear them. Both models are lightweight and easy to use.
The difference in numbers is significant. Where a defibrillator wasn’t used prior to ambulance arrival, there was a 30-day survival rate of 7 per cent. When a defibrillator was used, the survival rate was 49 per cent. This massive difference in survivability is because of the timing – as soon as someone goes into cardiac arrest, the sooner you get a defibrillator on them the better.
St John aims to see defibrillators in several different places in the community. Nearly three-quarters (73 per cent) of cardiac arrests happen in the home so the ideal is to have defibrillators close to home. People can buy them for the home just like any other appliance.
Alternatively, groups of people can band together to get one on their street and put them in the hands of community responders like Good Sam. Good Sam is an initiative, supported by St John, where a member of the public is alerted to a cardiac arrest at the same time an ambulance is notified. This gives an opportunity to get there early, start CPR, and use an AED if they have one.
Another good location for community AEDs is public buildings - ideally outside it so they’re accessible 24/7.
“The big thing is, don’t be scared of them,” Barnett says. “That 5 per cent community use is far too low. We want people to know what they are, that they’re there for use, even if they’re not sure whether somebody needs it or not, it doesn’t matter. They don’t shock someone unless they need to be shocked. They’re very, very safe.”
The more AEDs out in communities and the more confident people are in using them, the more likely an increase in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survivability.
You can buy a Hato Hone St John defibrillator at buy.stjohn.org.nz/firstaid or 0800 FIRST AID (0800 347 782). Discounted rates are available for charities.