Defibrillators for Home Use Promise Bigger Revenues

Although a relatively new and modest area of the home care products market, automatic external defibrillators (AEDs) for use at home boast the highest forecasted annual growth in the home care segment. These are the latest findings of Kalorama Information (New York, NY, USA), a healthcare market research firm.

While AEDs have long been used in hospitals, ambulances, care facilities, and even airplanes to restore normal operation to the heart, they are now also beginning to be used at home, an important development in early treatment of cardiac arrest, since 80% of cardiac arrests occur at home. Sales are expected to continue to grow quickly as home use becomes more commonplace, more competitors enter the market, and home defibrillators become a staple supply for individuals with atrial fibrillation. On the other hand, there has been some concern among medical professionals that these home users do not necessarily have appropriate training, and many advocate the more widespread use of community responders, who can be appropriately trained and managed.

Kalorama Information estimated manufacturers' sales of defibrillators for home use at US$34.6 million in 2009, and the market is expected to expand by 17.1% annually through 2014, compared to a more modest annual growth of only 2.2% for the entire home care products market during the same time period.

"Although sales remain small compared with other home health care markets, the home defibrillator market is growing briskly as consumers become increasingly aware of the existence of these devices,” said Bruce Carlson, publisher of Kalorama Information. "Sales will also be helped along by the mounting number of private insurers and Medicare that are including them in their coverage.”

The home defibrillator market was opened in 2004, with the launch of the Medtronic LifePak, a prescription defibrillator for home use sold at department stores. Philips Medical soon followed suit with the launch of the HeartStart Home Defibrillator, sold without a doctor's prescription. Many AED units have an "event memory” which store the electrocardiogram (ECG) of the patient, along with details of the time the unit was activated and the number and strength of any shocks delivered; some AED's even provide feedback on the quality of the compressions provided by the rescuer.

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