What question did this study set out to answer?

To determine how historical locations of sudden cardiac arrest can guide the strategic deployment of AEDs.

February 26, 2026IJC Heart & VasculatureOpen Access

Strategic automated external defibrillator deployment based on geospatial analysis of historical cardiac arrest locations

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Geospatial analysis optimizes AED placement for improving response times in sudden cardiac arrest incidents.

To determine how historical locations of sudden cardiac arrest can guide the strategic deployment of AEDs.
Analyzed historical out-of-hospital sudden cardiac arrest locations over multiple years.
Used geospatial analysis with software (QGIS Desktop) to identify clusters of cardiac arrests.
Plotted proposed AED locations based on identified clusters and calculated distances to existing AED registries.
Identified 97 clusters of SCA events covering 22% of total occurrences in Ventura County.
Proposed AEDs could reduce response times compared to EMS by an average of 3.1 minutes.
Around 18.9% of proposed AEDs were located near existing AEDs, indicating potential for improved coverage.

Heckard et al. (2026) studied this question.

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