Heart-Safe Zone
Heart-Safe Zone
What is a heart-safe zone?
"Heart-Safe Zone" is a Swedish standard designed to help businesses and organizations ensure they are well-prepared for sudden cardiac arrest by providing recommendations on training, placement, information, and maintenance of AEDs.
Save Lives with Safe Zones
Every year, 10,000 people in Sweden suffer sudden cardiac arrest, and only 600 survive. If more people knew how to perform CPR and there were more defibrillators available, more people could survive.
By being a heart-safe zone, you’ll be prepared in the event of a sudden cardiac arrest and demonstrate your care for your guests, visitors, customers, and employees.
You are also making an active, long-term decision that includes a plan for maintaining your AEDs and ensuring your staff’s proficiency.
The following criteria must be met for an area to be designated a heart-safe zone
- A defibrillator must be installed and must be clearly marked and labeled.Buy a defibrillator here ›andrent a defibrillator here ›
- There must be adequate preparedness and emergency procedures in place for responding to cardiac arrest.
- CPR should be started immediately, and treatment with a defibrillator should begin within three minutes.
- The defibrillator must be registered onhjartstartarregistret.se
- The defibrillator should be maintained on a regular basis.
- CPR training must be conducted annually.See our CPR training courses ›
By following these guidelines, you can ensure that you are able to provide care to someone who has suffered a sudden cardiac arrest.
You candownload the complete recommendations for the standard here.
Why a heart-safe zone?
The development of a Swedish standard for automated external defibrillators (AEDs) began after many people observed that recommendations regarding training and AEDs could vary widely, while inadequate maintenance of AEDs was noted in several locations.
SIS, the Swedish Standards Institute, established a committee in the spring of 2014, and the standard was launched in the fall of 2015. The committee’s goal has been to develop a standard that ensures the quality of the use of and information about AEDs so that more lives can be saved. The standard is intended to help customers achieve a high level of preparedness for sudden cardiac arrest by providing recommendations regarding:
- Number and Location of Defibrillators
- Signage and Labeling for the Defibrillator
- Training Procedures
- Alarm and Service Procedures
The information above is taken fromthe BFHS—the Swedish Defibrillator Council.To view the standard in its entirety,download it for free here.
For businesses that want to become a heart-safe zone
Of course, we help all our customers meet the requirements for a “Heart-Safe Zone,” if they wish. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us at any time. We can assist with training, defibrillators, procedures, and maintenance.