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HeartsafeLiving and HartslagNu join forces

September 2017

One nation-wide alerting system for resuscitation

HeartsafeLiving and HartslagNu, the two alert systems for resuscitation and AED assistance in the Netherlands, have united and will pass on to one nation-wide system to alert citizen responders when there is a 112 notification of cardiac arrest in their neighborhood. All Dutch dispatch centers will start using the system in the course of 2018. This means that citizen responders can be alerted anywhere, at any time via their smartphone, when they are nearby a cardiac arrest situation.

In order to enable the transition from two separated alert systems to one nation-wide alert system, a new and independent foundation is being established, which is called HartslagNu. HeartsafeLiving will deliver the technology for the new nation-wide alerting system. The coöperation between HeartsafeLiving and HartslagNu to form one nation-wide system is being supported by the Dutch Heart Association, GGD GHOR (dutch regional medical aid organisations), the Dutch Ministry of Public health, Welfare and Sport as well as Ambulancezorg Nederland, (the Dutch Ambulance Care Organisation). 

“We are delighted that the merger to one alert system has come. It ensures clarity and recognisability, because as a citizen responder you will be alerted trough one (new) app throughout the Netherlands, directly from all emergency dispatch centers. Rapid resuscitation does add value! Thanks to the efforts of citizen responders and AEDs, the chance of survival has already risen from 10% to 27% within ten years. Now that the organisations are joining forces, we can work towards an even higher chance of survival. Moreover, we will soon have a database of no less than 170,000 volunteers and more than 12,000 AEDs, which is great!”, says Hans Janssen, spokesperson for the new HartslagNu Foundation.

In the next months all data from the present alert system of HartslagNu and HeartsafeLiving will be merged in the new alerting system. Citizen responders do not have to register again. The citizen responders of both alert systems will be proactively included in the transition-information and as soon as the new app is available, they will be informed about this and requested to download the new app. For the time being the municipalities, safety regions and local AED-foundations keep their contractual obligations with present providers HeartsafeLiving and HartslagNu. The intention is to have the merger of the two systems operational by mid-2018.

Thanks to the collaboration between the two most important technical platforms for citizen responders it is now possible to centralize citizen assistance for fast resuscitation and AED use, to organise it uniformly and to anchor it permanently into the Dutch society. This allows us to further optimise the chances of survival for all victims of a cardiac arrest throughout the Netherlands.

About HeartsafeLiving and HartslagNu

About 300 people are affected by cardiac arrest outside the hospital every week. The first six minutes are then critical to survive. The technical alert system alerts volunteers (citizen responders) that are nearby a victim of a cardiac arrest. They receive an alert via their mobile phone or smartphone. Some of the citizen responders that accept the alert go directly to the victim, others get an AED first after which they go the victim. Due to the deployment of citizen responders and AEDs the chances of survival increased from 10% to 27%. HartslagNu is currently active in 18 ambulance regions and HeartsafeLiving in 7 ambulance regions. Together they cover the entire Netherlands.

For more questions about the collaboration you can visit the websites of HeartsafeLiving and HartslagNu or the interested organisations.