EBME Forums Forums Management Medical Equipment Management Zoll & Medtronic Biphasic defibs

Any of you got any of the latest models from either of these company's? If you have, what do you think of them?

How do you rate their customer service/technical service.

Have any of your Trusts standardised on them?

Cheers
Mark

We are standardising on the Lifepak 20 from Medtronic. In a population of about 20 we have had a couple of issues, one of which could have been serious. Customer response can be sluggish as technical issues are often referred to the USA. Both the machines were eventually replaced under warranty.

Mark,
we have dealt with both Medtronic and Zoll in recent years on behalf of Welsh Ambulance Service. They had Lifepak 12 machines and have recently upgraded to Zoll 'm' series. Both machines have pluses and minuses and if you want to e-mail me I can give you more detail. As far as customer service is concerned, Medtronic were excellent until they moved from Basingstoke to Watford . Since then their service has suffered. With Zoll I have noticed that their repair turn-around times are very poor ( at least 2-3weeks and sometimes longer) . That said, their training and technical advice are excellent.

Mike

The Luton & Dunstable Hospital has standardised on Zoll Biphasic M – series Defib. Sixty were purchased about 3 years ago with 5 years warranty. Have had very few problems with them and the technical service has been good. The only problems that were encountered were with the batteries. But that was our fault as due to staff shortages we had problems keeping up with the battery maintenance scheduled.
Would recommend the Zoll M-series Defib.

As Rick has pointed out, Medtronic's response time and service dept.(due to manpower) in the UK is not brilliant. More often than not, servicing and repairs will be referred to either Medtronic Europe or USA.
The acquisition of Lifepak by Medtronic and their subsequent move from Basingstoke to Watford meant that the Lifepak products are now handled under the Medtronic umbrella for servicing etc.
Having said that, Medtronic's education and salesforce have always been excellent.

Apparently, maximum energy levels of 150-200J on biphasic defibs is old hat. So, after buying Heartstart XL's, we've been told that we should really be looking at defibs with 360J max. energy levels.

Cheers
Mark

We have standardised on the Lifepak 20. We have 70 in use. So far, they have not been quite as reliable as our previous generation Lifepak 9's.
Power supply problems, batteries and recently a printer failure have been evident.

Brian.

Bit late now then, eh Mark (tee, hee)? For what it’s worth, I would have to say that the LifePak 20 seems to be the best option at the moment!

Geoff,

Titter ye not - we haven't gone too far down the Heartstart XL path. Anyway, who knows how much longer that model will be in production for??
Philips have always given us good service.
Medtronic, Philips or Zoll, hmm..

Cheers
Mark

A wise man once said that if you don’t know where you’re heading, any road will take you there!

(…is that a titter I hear?)