Lay first-responders alerted to out-of-hospital cardiac arrest by smartphone app — Not so novel any longer, and it’s time to do more

In this issue of Resuscitation researchers from Switzerland and Italy investigated the actual route distance taken by lay first-responders alerted to a nearby out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) victim via a smartphone application. 1 In common with a number of other app-based lay first-responder systems, 2 , 3 when a cardiac arrest is suspected by call-handlers at the emergency dispatch centre, an alert is sent to lay first-responders in parallel with the usual Emergency Medical Services (EMS) response