Heartsafe NWE

Heartsafe NWE is a pioneering project aimed at addressing the pressing issue of Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) across North-West Europe. 

SCA is the 3rd leading cause of death in Europe, with survival rates for Out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest (OHCA) varying significantly across regions. While the Netherlands boasts a 45% survival rate, other countries like Germany, Belgium, and Ireland lag behind, respectively with a survival rate of 31%, 26% and 25%. To bridge this gap, Heartsafe NWE is on a mission to ensure equal survival chances for all by implementing community-based first responder networks.

Our approach is threefold, consisting of: strategically placing 24/7 available Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs), training local citizens in CPR, and employing a cloud-based alerting system to dispatch citizen responders swiftly, eventually creating a Heartsafe ecosystem. We will do so by building and piloting a community-based OHCA first responder system in Galway, Leuven, and the Health Region Cologne-Bonn, and by delivering three tailor-made results-based scale-up strategies to make the local solutions sustainable. By adopting the proven Dutch best practice, we aim to increase OHCA survival rates by 10% in our pilot regions.

Heartsafe NWE is grounded in local community engagement. By empowering local authorities with the tools and knowledge to operate life-saving infrastructure, we aim to ensure that all local citizens have timely access to emergency assistance. 

Through strategic collaboration and innovative approaches, our project seeks to achieve the following goals and objectives:

  1. Enhance Emergency Response: Implement a community-based first responder system utilizing trained citizen responders and strategically placed Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) to reduce response times and improve outcomes for SCA patients.
  2. Increase Awareness and Training: Promote awareness of SCA and CPR training initiatives among the general public, healthcare professionals, and emergency response organizations to empower individuals to respond effectively in emergency situations.
  3. Facilitate Knowledge Exchange: Foster collaboration and knowledge exchange between regions involved in the project to share best practices, lessons learned, and innovative approaches for enhancing community safety and resilience.
  4. Evaluate and Scale Up: Conduct rigorous evaluation of project outcomes and develop evidence-based recommendations for scaling up successful interventions to other regions within NWE and beyond.

Follow us on our mission to save lives and create a safer, more resilient NWE region.