When Mary McCormack, ’09/’17, MS, DNP, FNP-C, started her Scholarly project for her Doctor of Nursing Practice degree at Molloy, she never imagined that now, nearly seven years later, it would have evolved into a community-wide interprofessional team effort towards improving out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) outcomes in Rockville Centre, NY.
The initial phase of the project was launched in 2016 and involved providing college student athletes with CPR and automated electronic defibrillator (AED) training via the American Heart Association’s CPR in Schools program. In 2018, the second phase followed in which Speech-Language Therapy students and faculty were provided with training. The program was well received, and due to the positive feedback, an aggressive campaign was launched in which all faculty and staff at Molloy University were invited to participate.
Beginning in the Fall 2021 semester, the Molloy Heart Safe Community team was formed and initiated a campaign to achieve the Citizen CPR Foundation’s Heart Safe Community designation for Rockville Centre, NY. This designation involves a multifaceted-interdisciplinary approach geared towards improving OHCA outcomes in the community. The Heart Safe Community team is comprised of faculty and students from Molloy’s Barbara H. Hagan School of Nursing and Health Sciences. The team has been collaborating with campus and community leaders, offering CPR and AED education both on campus and at local community events.
Recently, the team trained President James P. Lentini’s cabinet members, the Rockville Centre (RVC) mayor’s office and, in two all-day sessions, 155 Molloy student athletes. They have also created microcredentials for high school students and Molloy students who, once they achieve the criteria, receive a digital badge that they can use on their resumes. These students are also then invited to help with administrative work and to run events. So far, 92 Molloy undergraduates have applied as well as five high school students, with the expectation of many more to come.
The team has already partnered with the Girl Scouts and would like to partner with any school that would like to participate, as the course is approved for middle school and higher. Recently they incorporated the American Heart Association (AHA) CPR Anywhere program into the Molloy freshman studies curriculum. And in terms of RVC achieving the Citizen CPR Foundation’s Heart Safe Community designation, the Heart Safe Team has trained 319 RVC participants in several
AHA CPR Anywhere sessions between the months of April to November of 2022. Another 180 people were trained through the creation of pop-up sessions in the RVC Public Square and community events. Further, the team provided 44 people with take-home CPR Anytime Kits (generously donated by the AHA), which enabled those participants to train an additional 132 family members and friends.
Currently, the team is working to implement an on-campus cardiac emergency response protocol (CERP). This project is in collaboration with Public Safety and the Office of Student Affairs. Additionally, the team has more than doubled the number of AEDs on campus and are also in the process of establishing a 911 integrated AED Registry in which the location of all AEDs on campus and in the RVC community will be uploaded to a Pulse Point AED app. This app would enable users to be notified of the closest AED in the event of an emergency.
Soon members of the team will be heading to the University of North Carolina, Wilmington campus to hold breakout sessions at a conference. It is their intent to provide others with the knowledge and ability to replicate these various programs at their own organizations.
“The program has grown exponentially,” McCormack said. “It’s all about building healthy communities.”