Loomio
Wed 8 Aug 2018 6:17PM

Defibrillator Map

BP Brian Prangle Public Seen by 31

You may have heard or seen or read in the news over the past couple of days about a new initiative to map defibrillators in the UK led by the British Heart Foundation, the NHS and Microsoft. I've just the sent the following email as a Director od OpensSTreetMapUK to the contact at BHF.(there are links in the original email but the formatting curse has struck me)

Dear Sirs

I'm interested to find out more about your project which has been prominently featured in the news over the past few days and how the volunteer-led project to map the world, OpenStreetMap, can be involved as we have already have 1700 defibrillators mapped by volunteers in the UK and specifically 45 in one of your pilot areas, the West Midlands. We have mapped these via a combination of survey and past FOI requests to Ambulance Services

We have a website for volunteers to co-ordinate their efforts.

I look forward to discussing how you can take advantage of our work to date

AM

Alexis Markwick Wed 8 Aug 2018 6:26PM

I've added 36 to my town alone (http://bexhill-osm.org.uk/?T=pois&P=defibrillator), so I'll be great to see this information be used in other projects.

RW

Robert Whittaker Wed 8 Aug 2018 9:25PM

Many (possibly all) ambulance services already maintain geo-referenced lists of AEDs to provide details to 999 callers in needed. I suspect the project is mostly just a software solution to implement a national database to replace the ad-hoc systems (sometimes just a spreadsheet) of the individual services. Then the database can be hooked into 999 control systems, and provide a better interface for adding and updating listings.

I think the main problem with the current systems is getting people to register their AEDs and avoiding errors in the data. Near me https://osm.mathmos.net/defib/progress/IP/#11/52.4351/0.6915 where I've mapped quite a few AEDs, there are 10 that aren't on their current list (the red, orange and yellow circles; most are over 6 months old), and at least two on the list that are incorrect (I've told them about both, but they haven't changed the list). How much the new database will help with this I'm not sure. An easier interface for guardians and Ambulance staff will probably help, and there's then the possibility of a national campaign to get them registered in the official system.

What would be really good though is if we could get a commitment from them that the new database will offer a live opendata feed, and offer to work with them somehow to let them know about AEDs that we have got mapped that aren't listed in their database.

BP

Brian Prangle Fri 10 Aug 2018 9:16AM

British Heart Foundation have responded (positively I think) passing on our details to the project team responsible

DU

Deleted User Mon 3 Sep 2018 7:23PM

How responsive have the local ambulance services been? I contacted the NIAS (http://www.niamb.co.uk) back in 2015 to try and work with them to map the locations following the death of a local man, who was literally a few hundred metres from an AED.

I got absolutely nowhere with NIAS, but the local council and community groups did respond very well and I added about 20 in the local area.

One issue I would like to debate is the tagging of AED's. For example, the GAA have AED's at most of their grounds, but they tend to be not accessible to the public. While I think these need to be mapped, they also need be tagged to indicate access (locked inside a building, locked cabinet, combination lock etc)