June 1-7 each year is National CPR Awareness Week, spotlighting how lives can be saved if more Americans know CPR. Dr. Richard L. Snyder, Executive Vice President of Facilitated Health Networks for Independence Blue Cross, has been a long-time champion and advocate of CPR & AED awareness, leading a citywide initiative, CPR Ready Coalition, in collaboration with organizations such as: Penn Medicine, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Fire Department and the American Heart Association. Thanks to the efforts of this coalition, more than 160,000 people were trained in CPR from 2016-2020.
This April, the American Heart Association recognized Dr. Snyder’s dedication and leadership at the 66th Annual Heart Ball, honoring Dr. Snyder with the Heart of Philadelphia Award. Dr. Snyder also was recognized this past January, receiving the Leadership Legacy Award from the American Heart Association’s Eastern States Region, an award given to only a select few transformational volunteers for the Association. Dr. Snyder has volunteered with the Association for many years, including service as the Philadelphia region’s board chair.
He has always been passionate about CPR education and AED awareness and because of his leadership and vision, we have seen remarkable progress in the Philadelphia area as it relates to bystander CPR training, sudden cardiac arrest survival rates, and training in Philadelphia’s most historically disadvantaged neighborhoods.
Dr. Snyder maintains to achieve these successes, it is a “team sport” and he could not have done it alone.
We are proud to share with you Dr. Snyder’s honoree video, highlighting these achievements, and encourage you to learn CPR by visiting https://cpr.heart.org/.
“Hands-Only CPR is a powerful tool that takes minutes to learn and can double or even triple someone’s chance of surviving a sudden cardiac event,” said Richard Snyder, M.D. executive vice president of Facilitated Health Services for Independence Health Group, 2022 recipient of the American Heart Association Eastern States Region Leadership Legacy Award and 2023 recipient of the American Heart Association Heart of Philadelphia Award. “We’re proud to partner with the American Heart Association this week and all year to raise awareness about the importance of CPR to save lives. Everyone should take the time to learn this skill and inform others about its importance.”
“Hands-only CPR and AED awareness is so critically important,” said Jennifer Litchman-Green, Executive Director, American Heart Association, Philadelphia “We are so grateful for the dedicated collaborators we have in Greater Philadelphia, all working toward a common goal of training more lifesavers. An example of this is our hands-only CPR training kiosk located at Penn Medicine’s Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine, thanks to the incredible dedication and generosity of Independence Blue Cross. This kiosk has trained over 8,000 people to date, and I encourage anyone who is visiting the Perelman Center to stop by the kiosk and take less than five minutes to learn and practice hands-only CPR.”
In the U.S., cardiac arrest is a leading cause of death. Each year, more than 350,000 cardiac arrests occur outside the hospital, and about 20 percent occur in public places. Cardiac arrest occurs when the heart stops beating and can no longer pump blood to the brain or vital organs. Within seconds, a person becomes unresponsive and may not be breathing. When a person has a cardiac arrest, survival depends on immediately receiving CPR from someone nearby.
This post is locally sponsored by: