Doctors to Receive Guidelines on How to Handle Defective Defibrillators

A group that represents doctors, The Heart Rhythm Society, will publish guidelines to help doctors determine how to respond when a heart defibrillator malfunctions. The publication comes in response to problems experienced by cardiac defibrillator manufacturers,Guidant (recently acquired by Boston Scientific Corp.) and Medtronic. The guidelines call on device manufacturers to develop and use wireless and remote monitoring technology to identify possible malfunctions or problems earlier.