Texas City Council to Approve Controversial Defibrillator Purchase

May 04--Houston City Council is poised on Wednesday to authorize a widely criticized contract of up to nearly $6 million that would replace the fire department's supply of defibrillators, in the face of concerns about the costly devices that were not put out for competitive bidding.

The agreement with Washington-based Physio-Control comes to council six months after the city issued an emergency purchase order for 300 automated external defibrillators and 100 devices known as monitor defibrillators. These more expensive machines can serve as temporary pacemakers and allow paramedics to monitor patients' vital signs and transmit electrocardiograms to hospitals.

Physio-Control was set to stop servicing the city's supply of monitor defibrillators next year.

Mayor Sylvester Turner last week criticized the procurement process but noted that the city would have to pay, since the fire department already was in possession of many of the devices.

"There are rules in place to make sure this process doesn't happen again, but we already have the defibrillators. We owe them the money. We are going to have to pay the bill," Turner said.

The city did not seek competitive bids under a clause in state law exempting municipalities from doing so when the purchase "is necessary to preserve or protect the public health or safety."

The ordinance set for a vote Wednesday would appropriate $4.4 million from the fire and public works departments, while authorizing future spending for a maximum contract cost of $5.9 million.

Councilman Steve Le questioned the price of the devices -- about $2,200 apiece for the AEDs and $36,000 for the monitor defibrillators -- while Councilman Jack Christie warned against deals that guarantee a sole maintenance provider.

"It's something that you can't vote against, but just be cautious of the negotiations when you have a single provider," Christie said at council last week.

The Houston Fire Department received 100 new monitor defibrillators in January but has yet to secure the 300 AEDs authorized under the contract, Emergency Medical Services Assistant Chief David Almaguer said.

The department currently is using more than 250 AEDs on loan at no cost from Zoll, a Massachusetts firm conducting a medical study.

That study ended recently, however, prompting Zoll to offer the city either to buy the devices for roughly $400,000, or return them, Zoll CEO Jonathan Rennert said. That equates to about $1,600 per device, $600 less than Physio-Control's AEDs.

Rennert said the city never responded to Zoll's quote.

"It does strike us as highly unusual that the city is going to pay above market prices for competitors' equipment without going through a formal bidding process," Rennert said.

Asked why the city did not opt to purchase Zoll's AEDs, Turner spokeswoman Janice Evans said the new units come with a three-year warranty, replacement parts, annual inspection and other associated services.

"Procurement of the AEDs and defibrillator devices from the same manufacturer allows for seamless communication between the devices, HFD and all local hospitals," she added in an email.

Almaguer said the city intends to return Zoll's devices once it receives replacement AEDs from Physio-Control.

Though Evans said the deadline to do so passed in late March, Rennert said the company was "willing to work with the city."

"We understand that it's life-saving equipment," Rennert said. "Certainly we would never demand our equipment back and leave them with nothing to use."

The city already was using an older model of Physio-Control's monitor defibrillators, and moving away from the brand would result in the loss of historical data and personnel retraining costs of $200,000 to $250,000, Evans said.

Physio-Control's newer machine scored higher than other devices, including Zoll's comparable model, during a nine-week field evaluation conducted by the fire department.

Mairead Smith of ECRI Institute, a nonprofit medical device research organization, said the monitor defibrillator the city is seeking to purchase from Physio-Control received three out of five stars in an ECRI evaluation five years ago and was popular among EMS users.

Asked if the city changed any procurement policies as a result of the Physio-Control contract or intended to do so, Evans said the new chief procurement officer, John Gillespie, might recommend changes in the future but did not specify what those could be.

Physio-Control did not respond to a request for comment.

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