American Heart Association (AHA) task force calls for defibrillator access:
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
An American Heart Association task force says there should be full public access to automated external defibrillation. In a communique in the November issue of Circulation the task force chairman, Dr Myron Weisfeld, points out that rapid defibrillation and CPR are the major contributors to survival of adult victims of sudden cardiac arrest. The experts urge firefighters, police security personnel, non-physician care providers and, if properly trained, the families of heart patients to use defibrillators. Special efforts should be made in rural and congested urban areas, two sectors with a poor resuscitation track record, they say. About 1,000 people a day suffer cardiac arrest in the US .