Available Anytime Anywhere: Investigating Mobile Volunteer Responders for Out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest

Out of hospital cardiac arrest is a life-threatening event that requires immediate resuscitation actions. Therefore, digital volunteer responder initiatives integrate nearby users who can be activated anytime, anywhere through mobile technologies to assist in administering first aid. While research has found that such initiatives increases the chances of surviving, we know little about how responders use the digital services, and how they organize themselves before, during, and after responding. We conducted interviews with volunteer responders (N=16) to address how they perceive these initiatives and in particular how they negotiate availability temporally (anytime) and spatially (anywhere) for such life-threatening events. Our findings show that our responders exhibited strong perceptions of how and why one should volunteer. Also, the temporal aspect of being available anytime integrates several dimensions, while being available anywhere is highly related to safety, community and group roles. Finally, we discuss implications for design of volunteer responder initiatives.