Microsoft partner with British Heart Foundation to save lives via Automatic Defibrillator location map

Microsoft is partnering with the British Heart Foundation to help create a map of public Automatic Defibrillators.

The initiative comes after research found automatic defibrillators are only used in 3% of out of hospital cardiac arrests, despite the thousands of defibrillators being scattered around UK.

Owners of these deliberators will be invited to register their machines with Microsoft, with the app being used by emergency staff to direct callers to the where the machines can be found.

Chief Executive Simon Gillespie said: “Every minute without CPR or defibrillation reduces a person’s chance of surviving a cardiac arrest by around 10 per cent. Thousands more lives could be saved if the public were equipped with vital CPR skills, and had access to a defibrillator in the majority of cases.

“Over the last five years we’ve made great progress in introducing CPR training in more schools. We now need to improve access to the tens of thousands of public defibrillators across the UK. These life-saving devices can provide a vital lifeline for cardiac arrest victims until ambulance services arrive. This innovative project will give every ambulance service immediate access to the location of defibrillators in their areas, so they can direct bystanders to their nearest life-saving device in the event of a cardiac arrest.”

The national defibrillator network will launch in spring 2019 when guardians will be able to register their defibrillator onto the network through their local ambulance service. Some ambulance services are currently able to accept direct registrations so if you are looking to register your defibrillator now, please visit the map of ambulance services on the AACE website where there are links to contact your local service. For more information about the new database please email [email protected].