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Heartsaver Hero Awards are a special honor we give people who’ve used their CPR training to save a life. I’m always inspired by our Heartsaver Heroes, and it made me extra proud to recently recognize our own Mayur Patel, account manager for MD/DC/VA, with this special honor for saving his grandmother. Nothing makes me happier than to learn of how our own AHA family is living the mission.

Mayur had finished a day of account visits and had just gotten home to his parents’ house in Clarksburg, MD, where he was visiting for the weekend. He was upstairs when he heard very uncharacteristic noises and loud voices occurring downstairs, and realized something was wrong.

He went downstairs and found his parents around his paternal grandmother, who was on the couch. She was not moving and had poor color. The other three people in the room thought she had just passed out and were trying to wake her up.

Mayur recognized quickly it was worse than the others thought, and took charge of the situation. He told them to call 911 and positioned her to perform CPR.

“It was surreal,” Mayur said. “I really didn’t have to think; the training came back to me.”

He performed CPR for about eight minutes (but it seemed much longer than that) until EMS professionals from the local fire department arrived. The professionals took over for him and performed the pitcrew approach, according to Mayur. Before arriving at the local hospital his grandmother was shocked three times, and had a pulse on arrival, despite re-arresting a couple of times.

“She was in a coma and sedated about two day days, then she slowly woke up and had a couple-day period of more alertness and memory improvement,” Mayur said.

Thankfully, Mayur’s grandmother is now home with some needed supportive care, but is improving in strength and memory every day.

Mayur said his role at AHA and his CPR training made all the difference in helping save his grandmother’s life. While he’s happy she’s on the road to recovery and was glad he was at the right place at the right time, he hopes he never has to relive this experience again. We hope so too.

As we celebrate EMS Appreciation Week, I would like to recognize Mayur and the Montgomery County Fire Dept. for living the AHA mission and using your CPR training to save a life! We applaud your courage!

Happy EMS Appreciation Week!

G’Day from Australia! Each year, the American Heart Association trains more than 14.5 million people around the world in CPR, first aid and advanced cardiovascular care. In addition to the domestic conferences we attend, we work tirelessly to spread our AHA mission to our international audience as well. One of the highlights at the World Congress of Cardiology meeting in Melbourne this past weekend was the spotlight Hands-Only™ CPR live action training at the American Heart Association booth. We’re thrilled that approximately 600 scientific and healthcare thought leaders from around the world participated in this training experience and received a CPR Anytime® kit to take back to their hometown.

The AHA is a founding member of the World Heart Federation, the host of the biennial meeting. A significant focus of the meeting was around the recently established WHO goal of reducing non-communicable diseases, also known as chronic diseases, by 25% by 2025. Cardiovascular disease accounts for more than 60% of these NCD deaths, meaning the work we do has an extraordinary impact everywhere to help save lives. The international team is working hard to extend the mission globally via advocacy efforts, science and research collaboration and sharing programs like Hands-Only CPR in more countries. As we work hard to achieve our 2020 Impact Goal, remember that our collective effort each day matters – you’re helping to save lives!

Thanks for all you do on behalf of our lifesaving mission!

As we continue our efforts to produce future generations of lifesavers, I’d like to acknowledge some tremendous momentum we’ve gained during the most recent round of state legislative sessions since last fall. As a reminder, our CPR in Schools effort advocates for states to make CPR training – including the use of an automatic external defibrillator (AED) – a requirement for high school graduation.

At the time of this blog post, 15 states had already passed legislation with recent policy victories in Idaho, Mississippi and Maryland. We’ve also made great progress in Utah and Indiana. Utah appropriated significant money that will provide teachers with the resources they need to support CPR training in schools. We still have some work to do in Indiana, where the law currently allows for schools to opt out of the requirement. Despite these caveats, we are proud about the work we’ve done, and we’re hopeful both of these states, along with many others, will eventually sign bills into law that mirror legislation in the other 15 states.

Congratulations to AHA’s Advocacy team for their policy work and to our Community CPR team, who is working to put training solutions into action in states. Through these relentless efforts, the AHA is coming ever closer to creating and empowering the next generation of lifesavers!

**UPDATE: Monday, April 7th, 2014**

Our colleagues in India just wrapped up this wonderful video that highlighted the AAPI Summit. You can watch it here:

**ORIGINAL POST: Tuesday, January 28th, 2014**

Earlier this month, I had the privilege of representing the AHA at the highly successful and productive American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI) Global Healthcare Summit in Ahmedabad, India. The AAPI’s overarching mission is to assist and enable Indian American Physicians to excel in patient care, teaching and research in professional and community affairs.

While there, I participated in key leadership meetings and shared the global role and vision of AHA during the AAPI-AHA Liaison Committee at the summit. I was quite humbled to be recognized by the Health Minister of India, Mr. Ghulam Nabi Azad, and the Cabinet Minister of Overseas Indian Affairs, Mr. Vayalar Ravi, for our organization’s strategic collaboration toward the common goal of reducing mortality from heart disease and stroke.

This trip exemplifies the progress of our global efforts. We currently have International Training Centers in more than 60 countries, and we look to expand our global footprint to improve worldwide survival rates and quality of life with our lifesaving CPR programs. We stand committed to the AAPI goals and plan to roll out programs focused on India in the near future. In fact, we are considering opening an office abroad in New Delhi, and Baroda Medical College in Gujarat, India is in the process of applying to become an AHA International Training Center.

Exciting things to come in India…stay tuned!

Fun Fact: Ahmedabad, India was home to Mohandas Gandhi – considered the father of the Indian independence movement. While in India, Gandhi’s obvious virtue, simplistic lifestyle, and minimal dress endeared him to the people. Many civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr., used Gandhi’s concept of non-violent protest as a model for their own struggles.

**UPDATE: Friday, April 4th, 2014**

Our very first Saving Children’s Lives Instructor training took place in Botswana from 3/31 – 4/1 and was a resounding success. Over the course of two days, we graduated seven novice instructors. They have since implemented their new instructor skills for a new provider class of 17 participants.

**Original Post: March 20th, 2014**

I am pleased to share with you that the American Heart Association has been awarded our first international grant of $290,300 from the Asmund S. Laerdal Foundation, in support of our new international program, Saving Children’s Lives.

Today, more than four million children under the age of five die each year in limited resource countries, and we know that many of these children’s lives can be saved by increasing basic knowledge and skills of front-line healthcare workers. Our world-recognized expertise in both emergency cardiovascular care and systems change, along with our partner, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, a leader in pediatric emergency care, make us uniquely qualified to help drastically reduce the current mortality rate and to improve the systems of care.

The purpose of Saving Children’s Lives is to significantly reduce the Under Five Mortality Rate, by providing basic, yet critical, pediatric emergency care training to frontline community health workers and integrating the training into the health care system for sustainable, long-term results.

With a successful demonstration pilot in Botswana completed, and encouragement from the Botswana Ministries of Health, Saving Children’s Lives will continue to deepen work in Botswana and will expand into Tanzania during this initial implementation phase. As we further prove and grow the program, we are seeking additional funding to scale the program into other areas of Sub Saharan Africa, as well as other countries across the globe.

On behalf of the AHA, I want to express our gratitude to Laerdal for helping to fund this initiative and potentially save millions of children’s lives. I also want to thank AHA Volunteer Dr. Peter Meaney, for his work serving as the Medical Director for the program.

We will continue to keep you abreast of the latest developments of the Saving Children’s Lives program.

AHA’s very own Alicia Pederson, Science Committee Manager for Emergency Cardiovascular Care Programs and a seasoned AHA Instructor, harnessed her CPR skills to save the life of her newborn puppy. Alicia wasn’t sure if CPR would help, but she knew she had to do something, and sprung into quick action, clearing the puppy’s airway and then delivering “mouth to snout” breaths and compressions. IT WORKED! Her story inspired us all and showed us that quick action really can make a life or death difference!

Read Alicia’s remarkable story on AHA’s blog!

One of our guiding values at the AHA is improving and extending people’s lives, and I’ve had the pleasure recently to be part of global meetings striving to do just that. Earlier this month, our joint AHA and Chinese Society of Cardiology (CSC) Senior Management Group (SMG) had a highly productive series of meetings in Beijing to kickoff our collaboration and development of quality improvement programs for Acute Coronary Syndrome and Atrial Fibrillation in China.

The project will be called Improving Care for Cardiovascular Disease in China (CCC) and builds on the AHA’s 13 years of experience implementing Get with the Guidelines® in the US. The first phase of the project will establish a patient care registry and recruit the first 75 hospitals to participate in the program. Within 2 years it is expected that more than 200 hospitals throughout China will be participating in the program.

I’d especially like to thank Louise Morgan for her outstanding effort preparing and facilitating the meeting with her China counterparts. During our meeting, I also transitioned my role on the SMG to Kathryn Taubert, who I know will do an outstanding job.

Our community-based CPR & First Aid initiatives would not be possible without the help of generous sponsors. At the American Heart Association, we are passionate about educating and training as many people as possible in lifesaving CPR skills, and one of the ways we strive to accomplish this is through our CPR in Schools program. Ross Stores recognized the importance of this mission and mirrored our passion for educating the next generation of heroes.

Through an in-store cash register campaign that ran in 1,132 Ross stores across the country for four weeks in January and February, the retail chain and its patrons raised a whopping $2.77 million to support CPR in Schools. One hundred percent of the money raised during these two months will be donated to benefit the national program.

Ross customers were able to get a sense of the impact this campaign would have by reading about real life CPR heroes and survivors like Tommy Watson and Caleb Tisdale that were featured on in-store promotional flyers. These brave kids give the CPR in Schools program a face and validate the need for such an important fundraiser.

We would like to thank Ross and their customers for their generosity and for recognizing the importance of creating more heroes like Tommy and Caleb.

For more information on our CPR in Schools program, please visit www.heart.org/cprinschools.

Earlier this month, I had the privilege of representing the AHA at the highly successful and productive American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI) Global Healthcare Summit in Ahmedabad, India. The AAPI’s overarching mission is to assist and enable Indian American Physicians to excel in patient care, teaching and research in professional and community affairs.

While there, I participated in key leadership meetings and shared the global role and vision of AHA during the AAPI-AHA Liaison Committee at the summit. I was quite humbled to be recognized by the Health Minister of India, Mr. Ghulam Nabi Azad, and the Cabinet Minister of Overseas Indian Affairs, Mr. Vayalar Ravi, for our organization’s strategic collaboration toward the common goal of reducing mortality from heart disease and stroke.

This trip exemplifies the progress of our global efforts. We currently have International Training Centers in more than 60 countries, and we look to expand our global footprint to improve worldwide survival rates and quality of life with our lifesaving CPR programs. We stand committed to the AAPI goals and plan to roll out programs focused on India in the near future. In fact, we are considering opening an office abroad in New Delhi, and Baroda Medical College in Gujarat, India is in the process of applying to become an AHA International Training Center.

Exciting things to come in India…stay tuned!

Fun Fact: Ahmedabad, India was home to Mohandas Gandhi – considered the father of the Indian independence movement. While in India, Gandhi’s obvious virtue, simplistic lifestyle, and minimal dress endeared him to the people. Many civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr., used Gandhi’s concept of non-violent protest as a model for their own struggles.

On this 12^th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, we at the American Heart Association send a thank you to the EMTs, First Responders and every other worker at the scene that day saving lives.

CEO Nancy Brown wrote on Huffington Post how she appreciates all the men and women who put their lives on the line every day to save others. She also shared the story of Dr. Glenn Asaeda, the chief medical director of New York’s fire department. Asaeda’s experiences on Sept. 11, remind us that FDNY was handling other emergency calls that day, as well as responding to the terrorist attacks.

While many Americans notice the significant work of first responders during historic events like Sept. 11, I want to encourage everyone to appreciate what these individuals do daily. I’m proud that our CPR & First Aid teams work directly with EMS professionals, provide them with the tools, instruction and certifications they need to continue saving lives.

Thank you, First Responders and EMS Responders. We appreciate all you do.