Patent ID: 7783350

Claim:
A method comprising: operating an implantable medical device according to a ventricular pacing protocol (VPP) wherein ventricular pacing is precluded in a given cardiac cycle where a ventricular event occurred in a cardiac cycle immediately prior to the given cardiac cycle; establishing an A-A interval; initiating a first AV interval timer at the initiation of the given cardiac cycle; sensing for ventricular events; scheduling an early atrial pacing pulse at an accelerated atrial interval (AP(E)) prior to the termination of the A-A interval if no ventricular event is sensed within the duration of the AV interval timer, wherein the interval from an immediately preceding atrial event (A) to the AP(E) (A-AP(E)) is ≧the AV interval timer, is ≦a lower rate interval (LRI), and the AP(E) is selected to lead to a likely ventricular event (Target VS) at a predetermined time; and canceling the early atrial pacing pulse and reverting to the A-A interval if a ventricular event is sensed prior to the early atrial pacing pulse.