Jump Start a Heart

By | November 16, 2004
3 Comments

heartstart1.jpeg

Heart disease kills many people who had no idea that they were sick. More than 300,000 people die every year in the United States from sudden cardiac arrest. Most of these people had no idea they had heart disease.

For the best chance of survival from SCA caused by VF, a defibrillator should be used within 5 minutes. Yet, less than 1 in 20 people survive largely because a defibrillator does not arrive in time.

That’s the bad news, the good news is that more people will be saved as defibrillators become common.

heart start

This model, the Philips HeartStart, requires no training to operate. The unit itself will prompt you to remove the victim’s shirt, place an electrode on the right upper chest, another electrode on the lower left rib cage, and then the unit will monitor the heart and decide if a shock is necessary.

If the unit determines that CPR is needed, it will walk the user through those steps.

So that you won’t have a dead battery at the worst time, it performs a daily self-test. It doesn’t call 911 for you [note to Philips: it should], but this product is a remarkable advancement in home safety equipment.

The price of $1,500 is still prohibitive for many. But like other technology, prices are coming down while the products improve.

This gadget is the perfect synthesis of two of our mottos at The Speculist: Things are getting “better all the time,” and “live to see it.”

Via Instapundit.

  • Karl Hallowell

    Companies are going to be real reluctant to build devices that call 911 automatically in part because of liability issues. If my three year old sits on a “Headstart” and unintentionally dials 911, then this company will be liable for the expense. Besides 911 is a human interface. Shouldn’t have automatic devices dial that.

  • https://www.blog.speculist.com Stephen Gordon

    Karl:

    If Philips is comfortable enough with its machine for it to decide when to deliver electric shocks to a heart, it should be confident enough to let it decide to make a 911 call.

    It could be made “kid proof.” When the machine decides that a shock is needed it tells the user to stand away from the victim and push a flashing button.

    There could be a second flashing button to call 911 with a built-in speaker phone. The 911 call feature would only be enabled when the heart monitor shows that there is trouble.

  • https://www.blog.speculist.com Stephen Gordon

    Karl:

    And since its constantly doing battery checks anyway, it could call you and tell you if it needs to be serviced.