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McHenry County fire chiefs propose countywide PulsePoint app to speed bystander CPR
Summary
Fire chiefs asked the Law & Government Committee to support a countywide PulsePoint implementation that would integrate with dispatch to notify nearby CPR-trained bystanders and map AEDs; presenters said a countywide roll‑out would lower per‑resident costs and potentially save lives.
Fire chiefs from across McHenry County asked the Law & Government Committee on Friday to support pursuing a countywide implementation of the PulsePoint app, a CAD-integrated system that pushes alerts to nearby CPR-trained bystanders and displays AED locations.
The proposal was presented by Fire Chief Dan Wagner of Huntley and other district chiefs, who said the nonprofit PulsePoint system notifies registered responders when a 911 caller reports cardiac arrest and can shorten the time to first compressions. "If we can say 1 to 2 percent of those people, every year we'd be saving, you know, an additional 2 to 4 people," Chief Wagner said, citing a West Coast study and applying it to McHenry County's estimated 248 cardiac arrests per year.
Presenters described the system as a back‑end integration with the county's CAD and ETSB dispatch centers. They said implementation countywide would avoid multiple individual purchases and lower the cost per resident: presenters stated a countywide annual cost figure and a per‑resident example, saying the countywide cost would equate to roughly "6¢ per resident" versus about "25¢" per resident for a single smaller district.
Chiefs said the PulsePoint service also identifies public AEDs and can leverage grants and existing AED deployments; several departments are pursuing AED station grants. The presenters said implementation requires coordination with the county ETSB and the three PSAPs that operate through it, and that the county chiefs had voted unanimously at their meeting to support the effort.
Committee members praised the collaborative approach and supported directing staff to continue discussions with shared services and emergency services officials. The committee did not adopt a formal resolution at the meeting but authorized presenters to work with county staff and return with implementation details and cost breakdowns.
The presenters provided the committee with summary materials on survivability improvements and the cost figures cited during the presentation. They said some nearby jurisdictions already use PulsePoint, while no McHenry County district had implemented it countywide at the time of the meeting.
Committee members asked presenters to return with contractual details, exact costs for countywide versus single‑district deployment, and confirmation of ETSB technical integration steps.
