This month, TechNation consulted with the experts to find out the best purchasing and maintenance strategies for defibrillator equipment. Responders include John Backes, Associate Director of Rigel Medical; Annette Fasnacht, Senior Director of Marketing at Zoll Medical Corporation; Marc Lawrence, President of Progressive Medical International; Matt Spencer, President of DXE Medical, Inc.; and Steve Ziegenhagen, owner of Gopher Medical, Inc. What are the biggest trends right now in the defibrillator market? JOHN BACKES: It would seem that the main trends remain unchanged, although the way solutions are currently being delivered goes hand-in-hand with innovation. The most critical issues relating to cardioversion remain: response times to treatment – both access to and the availability of defibrillators – alongside treatment success rates, better interpretation and subsequent treatment during cardioversion, and making it easier for people to operate defibrillators safely and correctly, essentially making them more fail-safe. Innovation provides inventive ways of delivering cardioversion through the development of new shock waveforms. We have gone from sinusoidal waveforms in the early experimental days through the use of monophasic (DC) waveforms to current technology, which is based on the biphasic waveforms. Triphasic waveforms are also available, although presently there is no independent clinical data available...