KI researchers the originators of the award-winning life-saving app
How can we identify a system that recruits voluntary life-savers in the local environment? This question was the firing shot for a research project at Karolinska Institutet which resulted in the SMS Livräddare (Life Saver) app. Today the app has 38,000 experts in cardiopulmonary resuscitation linked to it, and ready to save lives. The research project is now being rewarded with the Athena Award, Sweden’s biggest prize in clinical research.
Leif Svensson, Professor at KI and working at the Centre for Resuscitation Science where Jacob Hollenberg is head and principal manager, was the person who took the initiative for the research project SMS Livräddning. The project, which is now being rewarded with the Athena Award, has been headed by Mattias Ringh, specialist doctor at the cardiac clinic at Södersjukhuset and a researcher at the Centre for Resuscitation Science.
The idea behind the app is that those who have registered on it and find themselves within a radius of 500 metres from someone who is suffering from cardiac arrest receives a text message on their mobile from the alarm centre at the same time that the ambulance service is informed. Those who receive a text message can quickly get to the person affected and start cardiopulmonary resuscitation before the ambulance arrives.