AED->Monitor adapters (PAD)

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medicdan

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Quick question for practicing field medics:

Do you, or your service carry adapters for different home or community AED pads to connect directly to your monitor/defib of choice? In the (rare) cases where you find a patient with bystander-initiated AED pads already in place do you put your own due to incompatibility?

Does anyone's department have a policy relating to taking bystander AEDs with the patient, for data collection? Who analyzes? How is the AED returned to the site of the call?

Has anyone encountered any problems with any of the above?

I am in the process of writing protocols for a Public Access Defibrillator, and have purchased, to travel with the AED, an adapter for use with LifePak products (our intercepting ALS uses LP12s, and I have ensured compatibility).

I appreciate any insight into this.
Thanks!

Dan
 
We don't take their AED's. We are able to connect to their pads and carry on. They can download their information if they want to.

R/r 911
 
If the pads don't fit a LP12, we rip em off.
 
We use Phillips FR2+ AED's and the ALS transport agency at most of our events is equipped with LifePaks.

Neither of us carry the connector, so we have to change out the pads.

As far as data, our agency downloads the AED data (ECG, shocks, and voice), reviews it, and attaches it to our incident report. If it is an especially interesting case, we may provide the data to the ALS agency and/or request their strips and report for a run review.
 
Hey,

We do not carry an adapter, but are having the Fire Department and Police adapt to us (are LP12's anyway) :P Right now it is a pain, as not all of their AEDs use patches that are compatible with our LP12, so we tend to have to change out the patches 90% of the time. They are slowly changing over to different AEDs, but its not cheap and is going to take awhile until they are all 100% compatible.

After an arrest, the AED can be brought to our main station and the data transferred over to a computer.
 
Every first responder group and public access AED in our area is zoll brand, we carry zoll monitors so we don't require any adapters. That setup is by design, service made a deal with zoll that everyone got a good price in order to make it work out that way.

Usually on a working code we will take a first responder in with us so if they remember they will bring their AED and we can download the data directly to our toughbook when we're done. If they don't bring it we like to have them bring it in to have the data interpreted later but it's really up to them.
 
There was one department in the area that was advising persons or companies asking about AEDs to buy Lifepaks, so they would be "compatible" with the FD monitors. I bet all those people are pissed now that Lifepak has turned out to be the worst AED on the market!

Last place I was, we acquired adaptors for each AED used in the area for each ambulance. You have to attach a big red or blaze orange tag to the adapters though, to insure they don't get lost.
 
EMS bought all the fire departments AEDs so we keep uniformity. As far as downloading, if an AED is used, we can download the code summary at EMS. EMS also keeps up with all the maintenece for the AEDs. It's a pretty big responsibility, but like I said, it keeps everything uniform, and everything from supplies to maintenece is done at one spot.
 
We have the adaptors and they work, the only compalint is that if new people forget to hook up the 4 lead when switching over and see a rhythm that needs to be paced with the paddle lead on the LP12 it wont work. With the adaptor on the LP12 it changes from a four lead combipad to a 2 lead combi pad preventing tranmission of electricity and reception of signal simultaneously. There may be other adaptors that do not create this problem but we do not have them and I have never seen them at any department I have worked for.
 
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