How controversial does it get? Like many important pieces of medical equipment, the sale and acquisition process of purchasing a life-saving device can be daunting – even outright frustrating. Couple this frustration with an inexperienced acquirer trying to learn and speak a language which heretofore was foreign to them and the migraine really starts to set in. Commonly AED purchasers cite “information overload” during the sales process. Battery Life, Electrode pad life, AED unit self checks, escalating energy vs. fixed energy, semi-automatic vs. automatic, you name it! Medical device manufacturers spend millions of dollars trying to simplify an important and complex medical process (analyzing a patient’s heart rhythm and delivering life-saving therapy – all in a matter of seconds), so why to AED salespeople overindulge the public with banal information? If the AED industry is so easy to understand, any bystander can be a rescuer with little-to-no formal training, and AED units utilize “smart” technology to avoid erroneous diagnosis, why do purchasers commonly hit a state of impasse when analyzing what unit is best for their needs?

Lets face it: all units are great. All units save lives. Nobody on this earth would like to be faced with a situation in which an AED isn’t available to them. So what’s the fuss? Are these features really important, and if so, does the public good which they offer outweigh the potential damage done by possible confusion and delaying device acquisition?

What do you think? Do AED unit differences matter, and if so, which ones?