Philips Medical Systems Technology has plans to sell a home defibrillator. That’s right: if your spouse or child or friend’s heart has stopped beating, you could grease up the paddles and jumpstart their heart . Not surprisingly, there are concerns.
some doctors and other emergency medicine experts are skeptical of the product making that promise – HeartStart Home, which at a list price of $1,995 is the first external heart defibrillator for sale without a prescription.
External defibrillators in the hands of trained professionals can and do save thousands of lives each year. That it is why they have made their way beyond emergency rooms and ambulances to be widely installed at airports, gyms and other public places.
But some medical workers and doctors say they fear that having a device like HeartStart in the house might delay calls to 911 to seek the dispatch of an emergency medical service team.
Anyway, great conversation piece for dinner guests. Additionally, you now can justify all those hours of watching ER.
Fit it with a cell phone that automatically calls 911 and transmits the registered owner’s address if it is used. Even better, give it hands free capability so the user can talk to 911 at the same time. Naturally, fines would be forthcoming for those inclined towards using it as the Mother of all Joy Buzzers at parties…
What’s scary is that this is the non-perscription defibrillator. I wonder if it’s over the counter, or if it can be out there with the tylenol. It seems like people who might actually need this would have no trouble getting a doctor to write a perscription, which leads to me wonder, who is this intended for? The casual defibrillator fan?