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73 AEDs. One Standard. Zero Guesswork: How Fayetteville State University Upgraded Campus Safety
Fayetteville State University replaced a nonuniform, manually managed AED program with a fully connected fleet of Avive Connect AED®s - and built a culture of emergency preparedness that extends beyond campus walls.
North Carolina
The Challenge:
Managing lifesaving equipment shouldn't rely on manual notetaking.
Before Avive, FSU's AED program was a patchwork: aging devices from multiple manufacturers, monthly manual inspections, and records kept in spreadsheets. A battery's expiration was marked with pen and paper. Whether a device was ready to use on any given day came down to whether someone had physically walked to that building and checked.
For a university with a deep obligation to its students, faculty, staff, and surrounding community, that wasn't good enough.
The Solution:
73 connected AEDs. Every building. Total visibility.
FSU partnered with Avive to replace their entire fleet with 73 Avive Connect AED®s - one in every campus building. The transition didn't just modernize the hardware. It transformed how the university manages, monitors, and thinks about emergency preparedness.
Every device is connected to Avive's REALConnect™ software, giving FSU's health and safety team a live dashboard of device status, battery levels, pad expiration dates, and deployment activity. No more manual rounds. No more guesswork.
"Our older systems had multiple fail points." said Daniel Core, Director of Environmental Health & Safety at FSU. “It gives a sense of security to walk by and see that flashing green button and recognize that I had a report five days ago, but also I have physical documentation that it’s been checked as well.”
For FSU's leadership, this wasn't about checking a regulatory box. It was about making a visible, institutional commitment to the safety of their people - and making that commitment legible to everyone who walks through campus.FSU partnered with Avive to replace their entire fleet with 73 Avive Connect AED®s - one in every campus building. The transition didn't just modernize the hardware. It transformed how the university manages, monitors, and thinks about emergency preparedness.
"I represent the administration in terms of making sure that life safety is one of our top risks that we are addressing each and every year," said Elizabeth Hunt, Assistant Vice Chancellor of Risk and Compliance at FSU. "And this project will address those issues for the university. The support that we have received from Avive has really reaffirmed what we already felt, that this was the best solution for our university.”
FSU is the second-oldest university in North Carolina and has long served as a center for learning and leadership for the community. That sense of responsibility shaped how they approached this program from the start.
"With this technology, we can control all of our fleet online," said Andrea Cortez, Environmental Health & Safety Officer at FSU. "Less processes, less money - and we save lives. It's a win-win. It's not only about emergency readiness, it's also about using our resources better. By not doing this manual checking on pads and batteries, we can use our professionals' time to take care of other important things on campus."
Training Day:
Equipping the campus and the community.
FSU didn't stop at deploying AEDs. They partnered with Avive and Cumberland County to participate in the RACE CARS Trial - a statewide initiative to train North Carolinians in CPR and use an AED to help improve outcomes for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest across the state. The university opened its doors to the community and lead the charge for Cumberland County during this groundbreaking cardiac arrest awareness event.
"We were excited to host this event on campus - a statewide initiative to help bring cardiac awareness training to not only people on campus, but to the community as well," said Chuck McKinnon, Associate Vice Chancellor of Strategic Communications at FSU.
Because an AED program is only as strong as the people prepared to use it.
"Because of its intuitive nature, it makes it easy for any and everyone," said Chuck. "It's not intimidating at all. From the size to the instructions, it really walks you through the process - in a time of crisis where many people may become anxious or feel overwhelmed, this allows you to take your time."
That partnership model is what Avive brings to every higher education institution it works with: helping colleges build comprehensive AED programs, not just fill walls with devices.
