Ambulance Victoria’s GoodSAM safety program has been reactivated to all responders in regional Victoria last week.
The GoodSAM program – (Smartphone Activated Medic) – connects volunteer responders to patients in the first critical minutes of a cardiac arrest while paramedics are on the way.
Executive Director of Clinical Operations at Ambulance Victoria (AV), Mick Stephenson said the program had been operating on a restricted basis due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“At Ambulance Victoria, the safety of our people, volunteers and patients is paramount,” Associate Professor Stephenson said.
“At the start of the pandemic, little was known on the impact of performing CPR in the community with the presence of COVID-19,” he said.
“That’s why we made the decision in March to suspend GoodSAM alerts from being sent to non-operational AV employees and the wider GoodSAM community.”
Associate Professor Stephenson said many ambulance services around the world had also placed community alerts on hold.
He said the 50 per cent decline in cardiac arrest survival rates during the first wave of COVID-19 was not materially impacted by the restricted deployment of GoodSAM.
“Our research showed there were multiple factors for this decrease – mainly due to paramedics taking two minutes longer to defibrillate as they need to apply PPE before responding,” he said.
“More cardiac arrests are also occurring in the home and this has meant less public defibrillation prior to ambulance arrival.”
Associate Professor Stephenson said that while GoodSAM was an important element of AV’s strategy to drive continued improvement in cardiac arrest, no one factor alone could be blamed for the decrease in cardiac arrest survival at this time.
He said recent international evidence, backed by the Australian Resuscitation Council, suggested that bystander CPR could be safely performed during the pandemic if guidelines were followed.
“Our GoodSAM responders will be directed to perform compression-only CPR and not using rescue breaths,” Associate Professor Stephenson said.
Further information on the GoodSAM program, including how to become a responder, can be accessed at this PS News link.
