Cardiac arrest app developers receive The prize for Innovation and Utilization, 2024

Professor Jacob Hollenberg, associate professor Mattias Ringh and adjunct professor Leif Svensson are awarded the Prize for Innovation and Utilization, in 2024.

Together with the research group at the Cardiac Arrest Center and KI Innovations, they have developed the SMS lifesaver app. The app, which is now operated by the company Heartrunner, alerts volunteer so-called "lifesavers" to the place where someone has suffered a cardiac arrest.The volunteers initiate life-saving measures, which increase the chances of saving the life of the person who has suffered the cardiac arrest.

The prize committee's justification:

Jacob Hollenberg, Mattias Ringh and Leif Svensson have conducted research in the area of ​​cardiac arrest for 20 years. They developed an idea to alert civilian volunteers to the scene of a cardiac arrest using an app on their mobile phones. The purpose of the alarm system was to increase the proportion of patients who receive early life-saving interventions in the form of cardiopulmonary resuscitation and defibrillation, thereby significantly improving the chances of survival. Through curiosity, initiative, entrepreneurship and perseverance, they have succeeded in proving the usefulness of the system, and through the company they started - Heartrunner - have succeeded in implementing it in large parts of Sweden and throughout Denmark. Their innovation affects thousands of people every year who suffer out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. More than 250,000 participants have joined the project and they have presented research data in prestigious journals. Their data has also led to international recommendations to alert volunteer lifeguards across Europe.