AED | Seattle Online Marketing, Communications, Strategy

A new school supply, the AED

September 6, 2009 By Joe Hage Leave a Comment

Pencils? Check. Pens? Check.
Notebooks? Check. Folders? Check.
AEDs? Come again?

An AED, an automatic external defibrillator, can make the difference between life and death on a school campus – indeed, anywhere.

911 and CPR make for a "half-hearted" emergency plan. Get a defibrillator.

911 and CPR (in isolation) make for a "half-hearted" emergency plan. Get a defibrillator.

Cardiac arrest happens when the heart’s electrical impulses suddenly misfire. The heart becomes unable to pump blood. Unconsciousness quickly follows and, without an electrical shock from a defibrillator within minutes, chances for resuscitation are grim. Only one victim in 20 typically survives.

Calling 911 and administering CPR are the first two links in what the American Heart Association calls the “Chain of Survival.” Defibrillation (which mostly anyone can give) and advanced life support (from a trained rescuer) are the other two links.

365,000 North Americans will die from sudden cardiac arrest this year; 7,000 of the SCA victims will be young. Six-year-old Emiliano was one of the lucky ones. His school had an AED when he went into cardiac arrest.

An AED study published in the August 11, 2009 Circulation (a journal of the American Heart Association) found that at 1,710 U.S. high schools with AEDs on site, nearly two-thirds of cardiac arrest victims survived. That’s more than 12 times higher than the typical survival rate of only about 5 percent when cardiac arrest occurs outside of a hospital.

For perspective, lead researcher Dr. Jonathan A. Drezner says cardiac arrest is the leading cause of death in young athletes. Of the 36 cardiac arrests in the high school study, 14 struck student athletes. Nine of them survived. Among the 22 adult occurrences, fourteen survived.

Kaitlin Forbes survived too. She was running to first base when she fell.

This child wasn’t as fortunate. No AED was present. He did not survive.

Can I say that he would have definitely survived if there had been a defibrillator present? No, I can’t. It’s not that linear. But for $1,500 or so, and that were my child, I wouldn’t want to find out the hard way.

My kids’ school has a defibrillator. Does yours? Ask them before the school year starts.

You are welcome to email me for more information or fill in this form and say you found out about defibrillators on JoeHageOnline.com.

Other cardiac arrest statistics:

The American Heart Association 2005 guidelines recommend defibrillation within three minutes of cardiac arrest.¹

The emergency medical team average response time is 6.6 minutes in mid-sized communities.²

The emergency medical team average response time is 9.0 minutes in “typical” communities.³

“For every minute without defibrillation, the odds of survival drop 7-10 percent. A sudden cardiac arrest victim who isn’t defibrillated within 8-10 minutes has virtually no chance of survival.”⁴

…
Joe Hage is the director of marketing communications for Cardiac Science, manufacturers of the Powerheart AED G3 defibrillator, so he has a vested interest in defibrillator sales. He encourages you to do your own research on defibrillation in schools. The most important thing is that you have a defibrillator (any brand), not necessarily his.
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1 AHA Guidelines 2005, Part 5: Electrical Therapies, IV-39
2 Braun O, McCallion R, Fazackerley J. Characteristics of midsized urban EMS systems. Ann Emerg Med 1990 May;19(5):536-46
3 Mosesso VN Jr, Davis EA, Auble TE, Paris PM, Yealy DM. Use of automated external defibrillators by police officers for treatment of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Ann Emerg Med. 1998;32:200-207.
4 American Heart Association website

New poll feature on LinkedIn

November 2, 2008 By Joe Hage Leave a Comment

LinkedIn has a new feature which enables users to create polls for free.

Here’s one I whipped up in five minutes. I’m interested in the feedback. It could give Cardiac Science valuable insight to reinforce the need for an automated external defibrillator (AED) in the office and in schools.

It seems to still be in beta testing, so if you make one, copy the URL for the poll immediately because there may not be a way to get the link otherwise.

Answer this one question for me if you’d be so kind:

Thanks!

...

TinyURL: The next killer app

October 28, 2008 By Joe Hage 9 Comments

TinyURL shortens a long Web address into something smaller, memorable, usable, and marketable. Along with the imitators that followed, the concept is a killer and TinyURL.com is a good place to start.

Practical applications

1. Twitter gives you 140 characters.

Twitter makes each character precious. On Twitter you’d use up your entire update with a long URL.

Go to TinyURL, insert the looong URL, and out pops a 24-character one. Makes a big difference when you want to set up the reason why your follower should click on the hyperlink you post.

2. Easier to customize and remember.

If you ask me to help you with marketing, I ask you to read The First Three Questions first. The article features the first three questions I’m going to ask you before we get started. To hyperlink to the story (before TinyURL) I would have to:

* Come to my website

* Use the search feature on the top right hand corner

* Type in “the first three”

* Get all the results (including the ones where the story is linked to)

* Scroll down

* Select the URL

* Copy http://blog.joehageonline.com/2008/05/03/marketing-strategy-the-first-three-questions/

* Paste it into my communication

Eight steps. Tonight I realized that I could go to TinyURL and create a small, memorable string. So I went in and created http://tinyurl.com/First3.

I’ll never forget it. I’ll never have to look it up again. Heck, you may even remember it and recommend it to a friend.

3. No more broken links

I recently did some fundraising for the Seattle Heart Walk, benefiting the American Heart Association.

Here is the string for my donation page: http://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=260789&lis=0&kntae260789=7555D15BA0FB4E269DF03E92C448DD09&supId=184963211

Not all browsers are savvy enough to recognize that the link extends that far. The string is so long that it wraps (as it did here) from one line to the next.

Frustrating.

With TinyURL, that problem goes away.

4. Free Marketing

Back to our fund raising example. Cardiac Science ran a promotion: sponsor any Cardiac Science employee and be eligible to win a free AED defibrillator (click here to learn more about why your child’s school needs one).

So I created a URL to market the benefit: http://tinyURL.com/WinAED

Which one is a better marketing communication?

Win an AED at http://tinyurl.com/WinAED

- or -

Win an AED at http://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=260789&lis=0&kntae260789=7555D15BA0FB4E269DF03E92C448DD09&supId=184963211

P.S. Sorry, Elizabeth, someone else won.

In a future post, I’ll talk about a TinyURL imitator that, as far as I can tell, has a distinct advantage versus TinyURL.

Are you already using this or a similar application? If so, share with my readers what you use and why.

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Best place to go into sudden cardiac arrest? Seattle.

September 25, 2008 By Joe Hage Leave a Comment

I’m glad I live where I do. Improve your chances with an AED defibrillator.

Or at least get one in your kids’ schools.

(Apologies in advance for the commercial they serve up first.)

There’s an AED in my kids’ school. Knowing what I know about sudden cardiac arrest, I can rest easier as a result.

Please contact me to learn more or to get an AED to protect your children.

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Still no AED defibrillator?

September 21, 2008 By Joe Hage 2 Comments

We saved a six-year-old a few weeks ago.

I do hope you have defibrillators in your kids’ schools.

My company Cardiac Science is giving an automated external defibrillator (AED) away in a few weeks to one lucky sponsor of the Heart Walk. I’ve had relatively few sponsors which should increase your chances. Click here to sponsor.

Below is a video I shot back in January. We saved Kaitlin’s life with a defibrillator. Seriously, get one of these for your kids’ schools and another for your office. Here’s a four-page brochure to share with folks at work.

Joe

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Life after Safeco

September 3, 2008 By Joe Hage 4 Comments

Safeco Friends,

It’s been 51 weeks since I last Safecoed with you. A lot can change in a year.

I work at Cardiac Science and really enjoy it.

(The Cardiac Science equivalent to the Safeco Playbook was my first assignment back in November.) We’re building the category and I can save a life through the sale of an AED (automated external defibrillator) or get someone back on his feet after a cardiac event.

The family is great.

Zachary started first grade and Lucas started full-day pre-kindergarten this week. They have their own blog (email me for a link). And with both kids in school Beth gets to resume her art (let us know if you have a special photo in mind).

I discovered [Read more...]