Selling defibrillators to municipalities

Automatic external defibrillators are "shock machines" used in ambulances and emergency rooms (CLEAR!... POW!) to get a heart beating effectively again. These are now FDA approved for use in the home, and don't require a physician prescription. The topic here is in the title line.

If any possibly untried and untrue medical program is being sold and purchased at the taxpayers expense, it may be fraud. I have a complete Pubmed literature search from last December that has all the abstracts of scientific commentary and studies on Public AED usefulness. Basically, the science for positive outcomes is good. Best outcomes are when there is a person, who is always close to the public placed AED, is trained and has daily responsibility for it. For example, security officers in casinos, flight attendants, etc.

One huge consideration from the literature is the availability of EMS in a community. If an ambulance with an AED can be expected to be called and arrive at the scene in 10 or so minutes, there's a good chance the nearby AED has lost it's usefulness. Airplanes, deep inside casinos and airports, and up the bleachers at a ballpark are good spots for AED's. Courthouse clerks may be better off learning to call 911, and leaving it at that, rather than risk the delay of the ambulance.

There ideally should be quite a bit going into any public AED effort. Having or needing only "a few" can get difficult to keep a good program going. There should be trained, and periodically retrained, personnel assigned to each one's use, documented physical maintenance, formal upkeep of detailed written protocols and procedures, and a physician medical director (licensed in your state) to sign them and be involved in their application.