An implanted cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) is a device that is placed into your chest to stimulate your heart during a severe rhythm disturbance and includes an internal pacemaker to regulate less severe irregularities within your heart rate. Once implanted, your doctor will program the device to suit your specific diagnostic requirements. After implantation, he or she will regularly monitor the ICD’s data to learn if you’ve had any irregularities in heart beat or if your device stimulated your heart since your last check-up, and if so, if it performed at the right time and was ultimately necessary. Adjustments to your device’s programming will be determined by your physician after reviewing the data provided by your ICD. Monitoring of your ICD can be done during scheduled in-office visits to your doctor’s office or your cardiac clinic, or you can submit the data remotely via telephone or internet.