Fondazione Ticino Cuore, Breganzona

CThere are between 200 and 250 sudden cardiac arrests (SCA) occurring in Ticino on an annual basis. At this time, the global survival rate is somewhere around 14% and increases to 28% in the case of ventricular fibrillation. With every minute of delay in reanimation, the probability of reanimation success decreases by 7-10%. The execution of basic life support and cardiopulmonary reanimation (BLS) in association with the use of automated external defibrillators (AED) by adequately trained nonprofessional rescuers can largely contribute to increasing the survival rate and quality of life of a person who is stricken by a SCA.
The canton of Ticino is certainly to be considered a pioneer in Switzerland in promoting activities and initiatives with the goal of improving the prognosis of victims of a sudden cardiac arrest.

After a period of political-administrative negotiation lasting several years, the Early Defibrillation and Reanimation Project, entered it's full operating phase during the month of February 2006.

The realization of this Project aims to accomplish the following objectives:

Increase the survival rate of victims of cardiac arrest from 28% to 50%
Insure citizens that in the case of sudden cardiac arrest that defibrillation will be administered within a maximum of 5 minutes.
Create technical, organizational, cultural and scientific conditions favorable to achieving the anticipated objectives.

To achieve the objectives stated above the following strategies have been defined:

Train an ever-growing number of people in the techniques of reanimation (BLS) and defibrillation (AED) (DAE)
Equip partner emergency institutions, private businesses, associations, clubs and adequately trained individuals (first responders) with semi-automatic defibrillators
Create a network of defibrillators distributed throughout the Canton which are coordinated and managed by Ticino Soccorso 144