Times Observer photo by Brian Ferry PulsePoint, seen here on a phone in front of City of Warren Fire Department vehicles, is an app that provides real-time information about emergencies in Warren County.

An off-duty responder could be close enough to help someone in distress but have no idea their skills and training are needed.

Connecting those people with nearby emergencies is the hard part.

PulsePoint is Warren County’s answer.

The app passes information about emergencies to users in real-time.

So far, there are about 700 users in Warren County, far more than in any of the other counties that connected at the same time, according to Public Safety Director Ken McCorrison.

And that is without much publicity. “We put it out on our Facebook one time,” McCorrison said.

Reporters at the Times Observer were invited to test the app and have been using it for about three weeks. They have seen medical calls, traffic crashes, and fires, with information about where those problems are and who is responding.

The app has a feature that will alert those nearby in situations where someone goes into cardiac arrest.

So far, there have been no alerts for CPR in Warren County, McCorrison said. That’s good.

But, the ability of the app to alert people… “that is huge,” he said.

PulsePoint can notify someone who is trained in CPR that there is someone in need of life-saving attention. “PulsePoint Respond empowers everyday citizens to provide life-saving assistance to victims of sudden cardiac arrest,” according to pulsepoint.org. “For extremely time-sensitive emergencies like cardiac arrest, notifying ‘first-first responders’ that are in the immediate vicinity of an event, simultaneously with the conventional Fire/EMS response, offers the potential to improve outcomes.”

On off-duty responder may be walking or driving by as someone just out of sight is in distress. They might never know. With PulsePoint, they will.

“This application could save lives in Warren County,” McCorrison said. “It’s a great situational awareness tool.”

“By expanding situational awareness beyond the purview of a traditional witnessed arrest radius, the opportunity to instantly draw skilled individuals, including off-duty health care professionals, grows, enabling critical life-sustaining BLS interventions to begin sooner and more often, and potentially of higher quality,” according to pulsepoint.org.

The app can also help people locate the nearest automated external defibrillator (AED).

The app can be useful to anyone — notifying them of a crash along their route to work or of a nearby brush fire — and McCorrison hopes people will utilize it.

But, he is actively encouraging those with CPR training to get involved.

He pointed to Warren General Hospital, local nursing homes, and Warren County School District.

“Every one of those places have 30 to 100 people that are trained in CPR,” he said. “We’re going to try to connect with them and encourage them to encourage their employees to sign up for the app.”

“Fifty-seven percent of adults in the U.S. say they have undergone training in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), most often due to work or school requirements,” according to pulsepoint.org. “Most say they would be willing to use CPR to help a stranger. Most say they would be willing to use an automated external defibrillator (AED). Eleven percent say they have used CPR in an actual emergency.”

The system is growing without a significant budget hit to the county.

“All 10 counties in northwest Pennsylvania will eventually connect to this,” McCorrison said. “The first five years — all the maintenance and upkeep — has been funded by Highmark and the Department of Health.”

McCorrison encouraged anyone who is interested in the app to check out some of the videos on the pulsepoint.org website.