In October 1993 the American Heart Association appointed the Task Force on Automatic External Defibrillation. The task force was charged with conducting a conference on automatic external defibrillation, evaluating research needed for broader community use of automatic external defibrillators, and overseeing evaluation of the feasibility and desirability of their use by healthcare professionals and the lay public. In December 1994 a conference on public access defibrillation was held in Washington, DC. More than 300 persons attended, representing science, industry, the healthcare professions, law, and the federal government. During the meeting the participants reached a consensus on the general proposition of greater public access to defibrillation and the need for broad-based clinical …