Types of AED Units

An AED is an Automatic External Defibrillator. Now, there are loads and loads of different brands of AED out there. They will all look different. However, they are all basically the same and can be pretty much cut down into around about three main types of AED. Now, all AED units will talk to you, they will all have an on-off button, they will all have a shock button unless they are an automatic one. But what we are going to do here, is look at this range, this is the HeartSine range of AED units.

Now, the first one we are going to look at is the HeartSine 350, because this is what's called a semi-automatic AED unit. Once you turn the unit on, it will talk you through what to do, you put the pads on, it will do an analysing side, where it is checking to see whether it's a shockable rhythm, whether the HeartSine AED is going to work. If it is, you need to physically push that button. So it will say "Push this flashing orange button." So when you push that button, or before you push that button, you need to make sure no one is touching the patient, everyone is clear and then you can push the button and that will deliver the shock.

Now, that's for semi-automatic. There is also the automatic version. This is an automatic, the HeartSine 360 and this doesn't have a shock button, but it does have a flashing light there. So with this unit, you put it on, it goes through the analysing cycle, but then it will say "Shock advised" and it will count down to the shock. And in that time, you need to make sure no one is touching the patient, because this will shock automatically.

Now, there is a third version we have got here, which is the HeartSine 500, but this comes under the group of AEDs which has CPR help. So with this unit, it will tell you whether you are pushing too fast or too slow, so it actually gives you voice feedback on how effective your CPR is. So it is a very, very good unit and also from the front of the unit, you will be able to see, keeping in the green, it can be very effective CPR. So although these other units all work the same, this one will actually give you positive feedback on your CPR quality. And again, other brands have similar types of features on them, but not all of them.

The final thing we are going to look at with this one is another system. If we just open this up, this is what they call a gateway unit, it has been added to the unit. This is this small unit at the top here and this will take data from the unit, so it is a very easy way of monitoring what state the unit is in, so this would tune in on Wi-Fi and it would detect whether the unit is functional. And there are lots of different systems you can add to this, you can take data off of the unit very simply, all of these units you can take data off, but it is a very fast, easy way of doing it.

And also, you can have an admin dashboard and it will even tell you things and give you alerts to say when the pads need changing when to do checks on the AED unit as well. All this is is simply, there are clips on top of these units, so it just clips on the top. And you see the connections here, clips back on the top. There is a small charger point there, which can directly access the data off of the unit as well and it is a very, very simple, easy addition to make an AED unit a lot better. Now, this unit here will only work on these units and you can then update the case, so it fits in lot better. But gateway units, or anything that communicates through Wi-Fi or 3G, will help to manage the AED to make sure it's fully functional when you need to use it.