
The most common cause of Sudden Cardiac Arrest is ventricular fibrillation - when the heart's electrical impulses become irregular and the heart is unable to pump oxygen rich blood throughout the body.Sudden Cardiac Arrest is a major unsolved public health problem and a leading cause of death in the United States.More than 460,000 Americans die each year from sudden cardiac arrest.The goal of San Diego's Public Access Defibrillation Program and San Diego Project Heart Beat is to improve the survivability of sudden cardiac arrest victims in San Diego by placing defibrillators in: The Goal of San Diego's Public Access Defibrillation Program

AEDs are designed to be used by non-medical personnel. What Is An Automated External Defibrillator?Īn Automated External Defibrillator (AED) is an easy-to-use, automated device which delivers a life-saving electric shock to the heart to halt rapid and chaotic heart activity, commonly known as sudden cardiac arrest, and restores normal heart rhythm. Partners in San Diego Project Heart Beat are San Diego Fire Fighters Local 145, the County of San Diego, the American Heart Association and AED Brands, LLC. San Diego Project Heart Beat's objective is to make Automated External Defibrillators (AED) as accessible as fire extinguishers throughout our community. Project Heart Beat has one main goal: to save lives through early defibrillation. We conclude that the echocardiographic measurements taken from healthy children in a longitudinal study can be made accurately with acceptable reproducibility.San Diego Project Heart Beat is the City of San Diego's Public Access Defibrillation/CPR Program managed by the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department. Mean differences in LV mass for the corresponding comparisons were -1.82, 4.50, and 0.0013 g, and the SDs were 18.79, 24.16, and 12.35 g, respectively. These differences, however, were minimal with limited clinical significance. Comparison with reference readings at Texas Children's Hospital showed significant differences in diastolic LV diameter, systolic septal thickness, and right ventricular ejection time. Interobserver comparison showed statistically but not clinically significant differences between the paired readings of end-diastolic septal thickness, end-systolic LV posterior wall thickness, and 5 Doppler measurements. For the intraobserver comparison, means and SDs of the differences were very small, indicating that the echo measurements were performed consistently by each project echo technician. Means and SDs of the differences of the paired measurements were used to assess the relative bias and random error of the measurements. Included in the evaluation were 8 M-mode echocardiographic measurements, ie, aortic root diameter, left atrial diameter, and end-diastolic and end-systolic measurements of interventricular septal thickness, left ventricular (LV) diameter, and LV posterior wall thickness 8 Doppler measurements and a calculated LV mass.

In Project HeartBeat!, a longitudinal study of cardiovascular disease risk factors in healthy children and adolescents, 3 samples of 40, 80, and 182 echocardiograms, respectively, were randomly selected and reread to evaluate intraobserver and interobserver variabilities and comparability between measurements of field echocardiographic technicians and reference readings at Texas Children's Hospital.
