About Us
HeartSafe Home was launched in June 2022 as a community intervention to raise awareness and capacity to respond to sudden cardiac arrest occurring in the home across underserved minority communities in Washtenaw and Livingston counties.
This initiative is funded by the American Heart Association and is part of the Michigan Resuscitation Innovation and Science Enterprise (M-RISE) research program. Members of the Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest Learning Community created and shaped this intervention and continue to contribute to spreading awareness.
Recent data from the Cardiac Arrest Registry to Enhance Survival (CARES) shows that about 70% of sudden cardiac arrests across Washtenaw and Livingston counties occur in the home, and less than half of those arrests saw a bystander responding with cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to the victim.
Response rates are traditionally lower for residents in minority and underserved communities, which have overall, less optimal health outcomes from sudden cardiac arrest. With improved planning and practice we can expect improved outcomes.
Michigan Resuscitation Innovation and Science Enterprise (M-RISE) is a new, AHA-funded research program with the mission to discover, translate and implement innovative therapies focused on preventing brain damage caused by cardiac arrest. The population project aims to to identify barriers and facilitators to shortening time to treatment during out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.
The HeartSafe Home initiative was created and launched by the Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest Learning Community, which is comprised of stakeholders of the chain of survival in Washtenaw and Livingston Counties. The OHCA Learning Community aims to accelerate the shared identification of priority areas for investigation and to facilitate more rapid implementation of innovative interventions to reduce OHCA response time and increase OHCA survival in the region.