Fire District Earns Computerworld Honor

The San Ramon Valley Fire Protection District has again been recognized for its innovation in developing a potentially life-saving iPhone application.

International Data Group’s Computerworld Honors Program this week announced the San Ramon Valley Fire Protection District as a 2011 Laureate for Innovation.

The annual award program honors visionary applications of information technology promoting positive social, economic and educational change.

The district was selected for its iPhone application that provides immediate, life-saving assistance to victims of sudden cardiac arrest by crowd-sourcing good samaritans.

The application was developed in partnership with the Center for Applied Informatics at Northern Kentucky University. 

Richard Price, fire chief for the San Ramon Valley Fire Protection District, said investigations have shown that bystander CPR results in a doubling or tripling of patient survival, yet CPR rates across the country have remained unacceptably low at around 26 percent.

“The application aims to improve this percentage by immediately alerting everyday citizens to the need for CPR nearby while also directing them to public access defibrillators when available," said Price.

The Computerworld Honors Program is governed by the not-for-profit Computerworld Information Technology Awards Foundation. Computerworld Honors is the longest running global program to honor individuals and organizations that use information technology to promote positive social, economic and educational change.

“The number and quality of nominations this year was very inspiring and demonstrated how valuable IT is to community change,” said John Amato, publisher of Computerworld. “Computerworld is very proud to name the 2011 class of laureates and showcase their initiatives benefiting society through innovative uses of IT.”

The Computerworld Honors awards will be presented at the Annual Laureates Medal Ceremony & Gala Awards on June 20 at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C.

Additional information about the program and a global archive of past laureate case studies and oral histories of Leadership Award recipients can be found at the Computerworld Honors website http://events.computerworld.com/Honors2011.