"We have had a very credible year but we are clearly going to report fewer sales this year than last in the hospitals," Hamilton says. "We believe that's mainly due to the recession and the prospect of health care reform as a second element which is making hospitals very cautious on spending on capital equipment in particular."

Physio-Control offers that they haven't been hit as hard by the economy and believe their innovations and efforts to stay ahead of the stringent government standards are factors.


"The economy is definitely tough for everyone in the industry, but we've actually had a good year. We had year over year growth in the resuscitation market," Pollock says. "We haven't let the economy stop us as far as innovating either. The bottom line is even though the economy is challenging, if you continue to innovate and bring things to the market that meet the customer's needs, you are able to weather some of that."

Still, government regulations and new taxes are expected to be a concern that all defibrillator manufacturing companies are going to have to deal with.

"One challenge is how we are going to absorb the tax on medical device companies that is expected. That will certainly put more pressure on earnings of public companies," Hamilton says. "That's a challenge that everyone in the industry will have to face."

Advancements on the rise

Although advancements continue to be made in defibrillator equipment and the entire resuscitation industry, the survival rate for sudden cardiac arrest victims is still very low.

"Even in the best cases, where the city has the best possible deployment of early response, the survival rate is in the 20 percent range," Miller says. "There's a lot to be done in terms of early survival from sudden cardiac arrest. That has to do with awareness and deployment of AEDs, citizens knowing CPR and employing a chain of survival more broadly across communities."

That's why the OEMs are constantly working on updating their products and providing the latest technology to the process.

"For defibrillators, finding better solutions is really crucial, because these devices really need to work when you need them to work and so good is never good enough," Pollock says. "You always want to make your products more durable and more reliable so they work every time you use them."

Physio-Control's LIFEPAK 15 monitor/defibrillator monitors SpO2, carbon monoxide and methemoglobin, includes a metronome to help time the CPR compressions and is powered by Lithium-ion battery technology.

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