AEDs at Your Fingertips: Automated External Defibrillators on College Campuses and a Novel Approach for Increasing Accessibility

The use of automated external defibrillators (AEDs) increases survival in cardiac arrest events. Due to the success of previous efforts and free, readily available mobile mapping software, the discussion is to emphasize the importance of the use of AEDs to prevent sudden cardiac arrest-related deaths on college campuses and abroad, while suggesting a novel approach to aiding in access and awareness issues. A user-friendly mobile application (a low-cost iOS map) was developed at Florida State University to decrease AED retrieval distance and time. The development of mobile AED maps is feasible for a variety of universities and other entities, with the potential to save lives. Just having AEDs installed is not enough-they need to be easily locatable. Society increasingly relies on phones to provide information, and there are opportunities to use mobile technology to locate and share information about relevant emergency devices; these should be incorporated into the chain of survival.