Automated External Defibrillators at Home?

In recent years, we've seen automated external defibrillators (AED) distributed in high-traffic areas throughout many of our communities. Though more cases of sudden cardiac events are occurring outside the home-owing to greater mobility for our older, at-risk patients-a great many cases do still occur in the home. With this in mind, researchers postulated that an AED placed in the home of an at-risk patient may limit their vulnerability to a sudden cardiac event. What did they find? Dr. Gust Bardy, president of the Seattle Institute for Cardiac Research and lead investigator of the Home Automated External Defibrillator Trial (HAT), published in the New England Journal of Medicine, discusses the findings of this trial with host Dr. Matthew Sorrentino.