Perham Area EMS recently received a grant in the amount of $10,000 from the Minnesota Resuscitation Consortium.
The consortium is part of the HeartRescue Project, which assembles the country’s leading emergency and resuscitation experts to expand successful city and county sudden cardiac arrest response programs to statewide levels.
A primary objective of the program is to develop an integrated community response to sudden cardiac arrest, ensuring everyone is prepared to respond by calling 911, starting chest compressions immediately and using an AED.
Commenting on the announcement, Barb Felt said, “This grant will continue the mission of Perham EMS, to increase the survival rates of sudden cardiac arrest. We continue to educate the community and surrounding areas in CPR and AED use.”
Perham EMS holds monthly CPR classes for the community and private classes for companies, and is registering all of the AEDs in the community on the state’s AED registry.
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This registry will assist AED owners with maintenance reminders, updates and other tools to ensure that their AED is rescue ready. The registry will also help develop maps and other location assisting tools for the community.
Demetris Yannopoulos, M.D., Medical Director for the Minnesota Resuscitation Consortium, explained, “Cardiac arrest care is a constantly changing process. There is new research and tools that can be utilized to improve outcomes. The work being done by our grant recipients will help to identify survival rates, best practices and new ideas that can help communities that are working to improve their level of care.”
Sudden cardiac arrest is a public health crisis during which the heart stops without warning. It is often caused by abnormalities of the heart’s electrical conduction system. As the leading cause of death in the world, it strikes an estimated 295,000 Americans each year.
To learn more, visit www.mrc.umn.edu , or contact Perham EMS at 346-4440.
