Start the Heart gets started in Lombard

It's not possible to make someone who's gone into cardiac arrest “worse than dead.”

That's what Dr. Valerie Phillips of Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital in Downers Grove says when she trains civilians to do CPR or use an automatic external defibrillator.

That lesson is part of the message of Start the Heart, a DuPage County Health Department program beginning in Lombard that aims to increase the number of people who are trained to help when someone's heart stops.

“Basically, we want to get people to respond and to react,” Lombard fire Lt. Paul Dirienzo said. “CPR is not that difficult to do, but you have to recognize when to do it and you have to intervene.”

The DuPage County Health Department received a $148,500 grant from U.S. Rep. Peter Roskam to fund Start the Heart, John Miller, volunteer development specialist, said. The money will support the purchase of AEDs for organizations that cannot afford them and 22-minute DVDs that teach people how to perform CPR. It also serves as seed money for the program, which will be run long-term by volunteers.

Aside from training, Start the Heart involves a research aspect, Phillips said.

“We have Lombard as our pilot community and one of the reasons why Lombard is important is the research part,” Miller said. “It's going to be a first of its kind research where we follow people that suffer a sudden cardiac arrest from the time they drop to the time they leave the hospital.”

Lombard firefighters and paramedics will be responsible for recording details about the patient's activities before going into cardiac arrest, Phillips said. Data also will include information about whether anyone performed CPR or used an AED to assist the patient before paramedics arrived, and whether any bystanders were trained in those techniques.

Staff at Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital will continue recording information about each cardiac arrest patient, with the last fact being the person's condition upon discharge: unimpaired, impaired or deceased.

“In order for this to demonstrate its effectiveness, it's going to have to be revealed with data,” Phillips said. “Using all that data, the county is actually trying to expand the CPR and AED training and use throughout the county. What we're hoping our data will show is that it starts to make a difference.”

Dirienzo, who serves on the volunteer committee running Start the Heart, said his goal is to begin training efforts with large group CPR training courses in the near future.

“(Start the Heart) is not intended to replace any training programs,” Phillips said. “This is intended to increase the availability of training, especially to persons that might not have otherwise done it.”

While Start the Heart is getting its start in Lombard, Miller said the health department will roll it out to other communities once the partnership between the county, the fire department and the hospital is working smoothly.

And until the program expands to the rest of the county, Phillips said residents still can begin to take in the message of Start the Heart:

“You cannot be afraid to intervene,” Phillips said. “If they're in cardiac arrest, you can only make them better, and the longer you wait, their chances of surviving deteriorate very rapidly.”