Project Heart Beat Saving Lives in San Diego

It's often said that it takes a tragedy to get things done. In San Diego, a sudden cardiac arrest death a few years ago was partially responsible for what has become one of the most successful public access defibrillation (PAD) programs in the country.

In October 1999, 56-year-old Ron McElliott had a SCA and collapsed at the finish line of the Arturo Barrios Invitational Race--an event he had founded a few years before. The ambulance assigned to the event, which carried an AED, had just been called to a nonemergency event, and bystanders' CPR efforts were unsuccessful. In 2001, his widow, Karen McElliott, and a number of other San Diego citizens were instrumental in founding San Diego Project Heart Beat.

"About three years earlier, we had put AEDs on all of our fire engines," says City of San Diego Medical Director James Dunford, MD, FACEP. "When I heard about a public access defibrillation program that was being unveiled at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, I presented the idea to our assistant fire chief, August Ghio, who is now the chief in San Marcos, and he was very enthusiastic about the idea of tackling a PAD program here. Our EMS system was an entrepreneurial public-private venture, and he saw this as an outstanding opportunity for us to spin off a new product that EMS could provide to the community." Dunford, Karen McElliott, city councilman Jim Madaffer, a union member from San Diego Firefighters Local 145 and Chief Ghio met with Molly Bowman, chief policy advocate for the American Heart Association's Southern California branch, to talk about the feasibility of starting a program in San Diego County.

"Chief Ghio suggested we develop an RFP and post it to all AED vendors who might want to participate with us in creating this new idea," says Dunford. "FirstWatch, which is now Cardiac Sciences, came forward with a proposal to put $100,000 into jumpstarting the program if their AED would be the preferred unit. San Diego's Lindberg International Airport became our first large collaborator, followed by other large agencies shortly thereafter." Soon, the colleges and universities became interested, but many didn't know how to implement a program or install the AEDs. "In several instances, people had cardiac arrests where AEDs were in proximity, but no one knew where they were or how to use them," Dunford adds. "In the county administration building, someone had a cardiac arrest and the AEDs were still in boxes in a closet." Eventually, UCSD and San Diego State became early adopters of Project Heart Beat, along with the County of San Diego, making it a truly regional program. Maureen O'Connor, a fire department employee, was brought in as program coordinator/manager, additional staff were hired for training and an office was established in the building that housed the fire union. Since then, O'Connor and her team members have deployed 3,400 AEDs within the communities of San Diego County, which have saved 58 lives to date.

"We've helped dozens of fire departments set up a PAD program," says Dunford, "and we recently got an AED and training into every middle school and high school in San Diego Unified School District. People don't have to buy their AEDs through Cardiac Science, but if they have an AED and just want to subscribe to the service, they can enter the locations of their AEDs into the premise information at the fire communications center so, in the event of a cardiac arrest, dispatchers are aware there is an AED at the location. Recently, the county adopted an ordinance that requires all newly constructed buildings of a certain size to have an AED on the premises."

For more information on San Diego Project Heart Beat, visit www.sdprojectheartbeat.com.

--Marie Nordberg, Associate Editor