A potential game changer

An App with the potential to revolutionise care in life-threatening emergencies throughout Wales, has been launched in partnership with the Welsh Ambulance Service.

GoodSAM is a pioneering app and web based platform, which alerts trained and verified Responders to nearby medical emergencies, helping to radically reduce death from life-threatening illnesses such as cardiac arrest.

Evidence shows that response time is a critical factor in cardiac arrest and being able to alert volunteer GoodSAM Responders to quickly attend nearby emergencies, in support of the Ambulance service, will help to save lives.

The highly governed GoodSAM system works by asking Welsh Ambulance Service Staff and Community First Responders, to sign up as volunteer GoodSAM Responders. From November, when a life threatening medical emergency call is received in the Welsh Ambulance Service Control Room or through the GoodSAM app, an alert is sent to up to three GoodSAM Responders who are nearest the incident asking them to attend the scene. The GoodSAM Responders are also able to determine the location of the nearest defibrillator through the GoodSAM AED Registry.

The system does not replace the role of the Welsh Ambulance Service, with its own crews continuing to be dispatched and respond in the normal way.
In 2016-17, the Welsh Ambulance Service attended over 5800 cardiac arrests, where resuscitation was attempted in 2832 cases. The UK average shows less than 10% of patients survive. For both trauma and cardiac arrest, the major determinant of outcome is time to treatment, and the sooner effective Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) is started, the better the chance of survival. For every minute delay, a patient's chances of survival fall by 10%*. If a defibrillator is readily available, patients are six times as likely to survive.
By facilitating rapid administration of high quality resuscitation by the community, the impact of GoodSAM is potentially game changing for cardiac arrest survival rates across Wales.

Greg Lloyd, Head of Clinical for the Welsh Ambulance Service, said: "We are delighted to be working in partnership with the GoodSAM team. It's a well-established fact that the sooner effective CPR is started, the better the chance of survival for the patient. Getting a defibrillator to someone in cardiac arrest quickly significantly increases their chance of survival. Working with GoodSAM will give us an integrated approach to alerting our volunteer responders to a nearby cardiac arrest, where they can offer potentially life-saving help. That will, undoubtedly, be a major asset."

"It is important to stress that the GoodSAM system is an additional resource to the emergency ambulance response, and not a replacement for it. Our crews will continue to be dispatched and respond as emergency teams to reports of a patient in cardiac arrest in the way we already do."

Co-founded by Professor Mark Wilson, Neurosurgery Consultant and London Air Ambulance Doctor, and Ali Ghorbangholi, an Electronic Engineer, Big Data and Cloud Architect, GoodSAM has, since its launch, rapidly grown into a global community operating in over 30 countries and is endorsed by the UK Resuscitation Council.