Myth or Fact: Remote monitoring of AEDs will remove humans from the process.
MYTH
Humans will always be an essential component of AED programs. While technological advances, like Scout Remote Monitoring System, makes things easier and saves time, the human component to AED checks is too important to eliminate. Chances cannot be taken with these life-saving devices.
Contrary to popular belief, remote monitoring will not take people out of AED programs. What it will do is
- Minimize manpower
- Save time
- Reduce costs associated with AED monitoring
- Provide an extra layer of protection
As we mentioned in Cleaning Up the Defunct AED Mess, “People and technology are both essential to ensure the best outcomes. You should never remove people from AED program management but remote monitoring leverages human effort to focus on highest and best use tasks.”
Minimize Manpower
While manual checks are still recommended, and in fact some states require it by law, ScoutRMS checks your AED daily or weekly (dependent on your AED), minimizing the amount of time taken by manually checking each. Saving manpower leaves space for other important tasks:
- Determining if you have the appropriate volume and optimal placement of AEDs throughout building(s)
- Coordinating AED training, refreshers, education on AED placement and internal response plans
- Managing the AED program as the company and footprint grows
Save Time
This goes hand-in-hand with minimizing manpower. For example, since ScoutRMS is checking your AEDs daily or weekly, you may decide to reduce manual checks to monthly or quarterly, saving time for other tasks as listed above, such as the internal response plan. Just having a working AED means nothing if the team is not prepared with training and internal response plans. ScoutRMS gives your team more time to be empowered to save a life.
Reduce Costs Associated with AED Monitoring
Manual inspections of AEDs are expensive because they rely on physical outputs that don’t scale. The greater number of AEDs, the higher the costs as more people walk and drive around to inspect devices. Fortunately, remote monitoring with ScoutRMS is a low-cost and predictable way to scale AED monitoring. You can read more about this in Cleaning Up the Defunct AED Mess.
Provide an Extra Layer of Protection
AEDs should still be regularly inspected in-person, but too often this task gets put on the bottom of the to-do list, especially if there are a large number of AEDs being managed. ScoutRMS provides an extra layer of protection by ensuring your AEDs are accurately checked and more often. Remote monitoring adds increased frequency and a fail safe for missed inspections.
If ScoutRMS reports a failure, it is necessary that a person inspect the AED in question as soon as possible, and fix the failure. There is also the ongoing maintenance of expired pads and batteries. Logging these dates in a program management software helps to set reminders, but only a human can replace those parts that are vital for the AED to work properly.
To see why more and more organizations are adding ScoutRMS to their AED programs, request a demo below!