“Sir, your car has not been stolen.”

“How do you know?”

“Because it wasn’t reported as stolen.”

Isn’t that a message that leaves you wondering? Where is your car? Not stolen, okay, but what else? Is it working? Is your car where you left it? In your garage? Where you parked it? Or if it was your bicycle: Not stolen, but wouldn’t you want to know more?

How does negative confirmation make you feel?

And yet, negative confirmation is sometimes the basis for managed AED programs: ‘We have not received a failure, so the AED must be in working condition’ is in our opinion a risky approach to a very real issue: Ensuring uptime and readiness of lifesaving devices. Of course, you need to react upon failures and warnings: Exchange the pads before they expire, react to weakening batteries, check upon a device after it has been moved and make sure that devices are in overall good condition. But what about the gaps? The gaps between checks? Sometimes these are months, oftentimes years.

What if the security itself fails, say the mechanism, the messenger, that transfers the AED failure? In some cases, this is based on sound: Listening to the beeps that AEDs typically make in case of warnings or failures. What if the batteries go flat and there are no more sounds? For such a technology, what is the difference between a lifesaving AED with a flat battery and say a block of wood? Both do not make any sounds, so they must be in perfect condition ready to safe a life, isn’t that right?

If you haven’t noticed by now, this blog post is very much an opinion, it is our opinion after eight years of having made sure that AEDs across the globe are in working condition. We believe that in 2024 there are technologies available to provide positive confirmation, technologies, that are able to confirm and validate AEDs are in working condition. In addition, these technologies assure you that your AED is in its intended location. And if your device has been taken, the new technologies let you follow it on the screen. Every single day, 365 days a year!

In conclusion, building your AED program around the detection of error is a rather risky strategy. A better approach is relying on the self-test: The self-tests of the AEDs do offer you the positive confirmation and provide you the needed assurance that your AEDs are in perfect condition ready to save lives. Your program deserves it!