Since FAST exists solely because of highly motivated young people who generously donate their time to teach others and make a difference, each opportunity to save money is highly appreciated. For this reason, and the fact that they adore modern mobile technology, their team of instructors chose our AED training solution based on iPads and iPhones for all of their CPR&AED courses.

Here is what they say about our mobile applications:

With the AED iPad application, self-adhesive electrodes, which connect directly to the iPad, are used. The costs of a training AED and an iPad are almost the same, but an iPad can be used for many other functions, aside from our AED simulator. This marriage between technology, software, and education has proved to be an excellent solution for projects such as StEPP (First Aid Student Team).

With the application for iPad, it is possible to use another application for the iPhone, using the iPhone as an AED remote. With the help of the iPhone AED Remote, the instructor can wirelessly control (via Bluetooth) the AED iPad application – the instructor can modify or change the scenario and rhythms in real time, to simulate an empty AED battery or incorrectly connected electrodes, for example.

Throughout our course, we used this new method of training and we found that it was extremely well received by our students, thus demonstrating that this approach to education and technology seems to be very effective.

Here are some photos from one of FAST CPR&AED courses:

Our custom AED training pads, which can be plugged into iPad to make your CPR&AED training even more realistic are now available to order. They contain adhesive material allowing them to be used with all CPR manikins.

You can order AED training pads now using our online web form.

Watch the video below to see our custom AED training pads used together with our AED training apps during a CPR&AED course for medical students.

Smartphone apps for CPR from Resuscitation 2012 on Vimeo.

Resuscitation 2012 is the biggest annual congress organised by the European Resuscitation Council. It will start on Thursday 18 October 09:00 until Saturday 20 October 15:00.

We will be there presenting our latest research regarding our mobile AED training solution. Come and visit us during Poster Tour 34 on Saturday 20 October at 12:40 to learn about our paper “Can the iPad be used as an automated external defibrillator (AED) trainer during basic life support and automated external defibrillator (BLS/AED) courses? A preliminary study”

Click to enlarge.

AED Remote app works together with our AED Trainer, allowing you to control the AED simulator on the iPad wirelessly and in real time. Some of it features include the ability to change scenarios on the fly, as well as to simulate various conditions like poor pads connection or low battery. Together this makes for a powerful and extremely versatile training solution, which is numerous times more affordable than available traditional AED trainers.

In the following videos you can see our AED training solution in action during a CPR&AED course for medical students, as well as a short instruction video explaining how to use AED Trainer and AED Remote together.

Soon we will introduce a new iPhone application, which will function as a wireless remote control for the AED Trainer on the iPad. It will allow the instructor to change scenarios on the fly, as well as simulate various conditions, such as battery failure and poor pads contact. Furthermore, we will soon open pre-orders for our custom iPad training pads, which can be used with any CPR manikins.

We tested our complete AED training solution during a CPR&AED course for medical students, and it proved to be very successful. Medical students using our solution during training gave us a lot of positive feedback, which motivated us to bring our new products to you as fast as possible.

Take a look at a video and some photos of medical students using our AED training solution.

iPad + iPhone AED Training solution
By Ivor Medical  |  View on Facebook

One of the main problems with in-hospital cardiac arrest is failure to recognize the deteriorating patient. Data shows that in approximately 80% of cases there is deterioration in vital signs during the few hours before cardiac arrest. If such deterioration is recognized, many unwanted events can be prevented. This is of course anything but an easy task. In many hospitals, vital signs are measured and recorded several times a day by the nurses. To help detect deterioration and predict cardiac arrest, early warning scoring systems are used to allocate points to vital signs on the basement of their deflection from normal range. However, such systems are hard to implement and have shown conflicting results. There are many issues like low frequency of observation, staff work overload and human errors.

In areas of intensive care, patients are closely monitored 24 hours a day, but patients on other wards, who are not immune to cardiac arrest, are not. Attaching all patients in the hospital to conventional monitors is unnecessary, expensive, restricting and just completely ridiculous. But what if we had monitors that are not like those big boxes with lots of wires we are used to? What if we had monitors that look like small band-aids? What if these monitors could do all the work on their own and warn medical staff of deteriorating patients?

A company from UK called Toumaz makes just that kind of devices, which hold a great potential of increasing survival rates of in-hospital cardiac arrest. They have developed a new generation of ultra-small body-worn monitors that deliver continual observation and patient management in both general ward and outpatient settings. Once admitted, a patient gets a small band-aid like wireless monitor attached to his chest. This small computer on a chip receives physiological signals such as the ECG and respiratory activity, converts them into heart rate and respiratory rate data, and transmits them to the hospital computer database. From their warnings of deterioration can be sent out everywhere, to nurse’s stations or doctor’s mobile phones. Measurements happen automatically as frequently as every two minutes, with patients moving around their rooms or the whole hospital. Once the system, which can incorporate other measurements like blood pressure or oxygen saturation, is perfected, it will free the caregivers to focus on other important tasks and have great impact on improving patient outcomes.

You can read more about the Sensium Digital Patch from Toumaz in the latest Personalised Medicine supplement of Electronics Letters.

We are proud to announce that our founder Dr. Kovic and his colleagues will present their scientific paper investigating ergonomics of the CPR PRO cradle, which has been shown to reduce rescuer fatigue. Their paper titled “CPR PRO DEVICE REDUCES RESCUER FATIGUE DURING COUNTINOUS CHEST COMPRESSION CARDIOPULMONARY RESUSCITATION: A RANDOMIZED CROSS-OVER STUDY USING A MANIKIN MODEL” will be presented in the form of a poster, which will be on display in the venue throughout the event.

You can download the final program of the Resuscitation 2011 Symposium, with its main topic being implementation of the latest CPR guidelines introduced last year.

Hope to see you in Malta!