Original author(s) Operating system | Developer(s) Richard Price Website pulsepoint.org | |
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PulsePoint is a mobile phone application that allows users to view and receive alerts on calls being responded to by fire departments and emergency medical services. The app's main feature, and where its name comes from, is that it sends alerts to users at the same time that dispatchers are sending the call to emergency crews. The goal is to increase the possibility that a victim in cardiac arrest will receive cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) quickly. The app uses the current location of a user and will alert them if someone in their vicinity is in need of CPR. The app, which interfaces with a fire departments dispatch center, will send notifications to users only if the victim is in a public place and only to users that are in the immediate vicinity of the emergency. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area PulsePoint is run by a non-profit foundation of the same name.
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"The whose goal is to make it much easier for citizens who are trained in CPR to use their life-saving skills to save lives. Through the use of modern, location-aware mobile devices, PulsePoint is building applications that work with local fire departments, EMS agencies and police departments to improve communications with citizens and empower them to help reduce the estimated 1 million worldwide annual deaths from sudden cardiac arrest."
History
Richard Price, president of the PulsePoint Foundation, said that the idea for the application came to him in 2010 while he was serving as the fire chief in the San Ramon Valley. While he was out to lunch he hear sirens and saw one of his own engines pull up in front of the restaurant he was eating out. It turned out that someone next door had collapsed and gone into cardiac arrest. Since Price was the department chief, he was not dispatched to the call and did not know about, but he was CPR certified and carried a defibrillator in his car. This incident left him wondering if technology could help produce a way for civilians who were trained to help in the event of nearby emergency. The American Heart Association estimates that 383,000 out of hospital cardiac arrests occur each year in the United States.
In April 2012, PulsePoint was one of only five mobile applications worldwide to be nominated for a Webby Award. It was nominated under the category of Best Use of GPS or Location Technology. A year later, in 2013, it was once again nominated in the same category. In 2014, the application was once again nominated, this time in the category of City & Urban Innovation.
Concerns
Some privacy experts have expressed concern that the app many invade the medical privacy of victims. The Los Angeles County Fire Department, one of the many users of the app, has pointed out that The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) protects the privacy of identifiable health information. On a ‘CPR Needed’ notification, which is sent out through the app, the only information that is seen is an address (which must be in a public place) and a business name, if available. The individually identifiable health information protected by HIPAA, such as name, birth date, or SSN are not reported or even known by the PulsePoint application.
Additional concerns that have been raised are that the app can cause too many bystanders to congregate at the scene of an emergency and that those responding via the app may not be trained in CPR or AED.
Features
Along with being able to view a list of calls in real time, users also have the option to listen in to radio traffic to accompany the application’s incident list. To facilitate the live feed, PulsePoint uses Broadcastify, a website that is the largest broadcaster of live public safety audio feeds, to stream radio channels within the app.
An additional feature of the application is an interface with Flickr that allows agencies to share photos through the app. Users can view incident, event, station, apparatus, and other photos that the agency chooses to share.
Users
As of November 26, 2016 there were over 1300 separate fire and EMS agencies across the United States setup to use PulsePoint. Some of the most well known departments include: