How To Get Your ACLS Certification

Getting an Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) Certification goes beyond CPR and Basic Life Support (BLS). It provides healthcare professionals with the knowledge and skills necessary to make crucial decisions in emergency and critical situations. These include administering IV's, using intravenous drugs and other specialized equipment.

Who Needs to get Certified?

ACLS Certification is required and mandatory in most states for all doctors, nurses, paramedics and healthcare workers that are involved in emergency rooms, cardiac units and emergency transport.

Other jobs such as teachers, firefighers, lifeguards, coaches and people who deal with children may be required to get an ACLS certification.

Having an ACLS certification means that you are properly trained and have the skills necessary to make life-saving decisions. A candidate must complete hours of training which include written and physical components that demonstrate the correct and proper techniques in different emergency situations.

The American Heart Association is the governing body that comes out with guidelines every 5 years to ensure the latest life saving techniques, medicine and equipment are being used.

Where Can I Get Training?

Most Classes are available through medical facilities, community centers, local colleges and online. The course is also available through the American Heart Association. Where and how you choose to get training is important because you need to ensure the course is accepted and recognized by the American Heart Association.

There are many courses online that offer free and paid interactive quizzes and exams that will test your ACLS knowledge.

In order to get certified, you need to complete both the online course and an in-person skills test for initial certification that will demonstrate you have the hands-on training to save lives.

Once your training is done, you are ready for the ACLS exam which ensures each student has to ability to function alone or as part of a team. An ACLS card is then provided to all students that successfully pass the exam. This serves as proof of ACLS certification.

ACLS Re-certification

In order to maintain your ACLS certification and brush up on your skills, you need to get re-certified every two years. This can be done online and getting re-certified is cheaper and the process is much shorter than the initial certification. It usually depends on the organization that is providing the re-certification.

Getting Your ACLS certification is not as hard as some people make it out to be. In fact, you can get certified in just a few weeks.


Article Source: Megan Palmer