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American Heart Association and TriHealth Offering Free CPR Training Kits to Community Organizations
April 17, 2008
Only 6.4 percent of sudden cardiac arrest victims survive, in part because the vast majority of people witnessing a cardiac arrest do not know how to perform CPR. In an effort to improve this statistic, TriHealth and the American Heart Association have teamed up to provide free CPR training kits to community organizations that are willing to facilitate a self-directed approach to CPR training of their members.
This revolutionary new approach to CPR training, called CPR Anytime, was developed by the American Heart Association. The research-proven “practice while watching” technique allows users to practice CPR on a personal mannequin while watching a DVD.
To order CPR Anytime kits, community groups must complete an application, which must be submitted by Friday, May 16; kits will be distributed by the end of May.
Each CPR Anytime kit includes an inflatable CPR mannequin, a skills practice DVD, instruction manual and program accessories. CPR Anytime coordinators are required to facilitate the education of members in their program, training as many individuals per kit as possible (minimum 5 per kit).
CPR Anytime was created to increase the incidence of bystander CPR by making training more accessible. Now through the support of TriHealth, kits will be distributed free of charge to community groups that will commit to training at least five people per kit.
“Our goal is to have at least five people trained on each of 1,500 kits. That would mean 7,500 more people trained in CPR and available to help in an emergency situation at home, at work, or wherever they may be,” said Nancy Dallas, administrator of cardiovascular services for TriHealth, a community partnership of Bethesda and Good Samaritan hospitals. “We believe that this grassroots effort will improve heart attack survival rates in our community.”
The impact of providing bystander CPR is profound. It more than doubles the chance that a sudden cardiac arrest victim will survive. Yet victims receive bystander CPR in only about 27 percent of cases.
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