AHA BLS Healthcare Provider Course
About This Course
The AHA’s BLS course trains participants to promptly recognize several life-threatening emergencies, give high-quality chest compressions, deliver appropriate ventilations and provide early use of an AED. Reflects science and education from the American Heart Association Guidelines Update for CPR and Emergency Cardiovascular Care (ECC).
Who Should Take This Course
The AHA’s BLS Course is designed for healthcare professionals and other personnel who need to know how to perform CPR and other basic cardiovascular life support skills in a wide variety of in-facility and prehospital settings.
What does this course teach?
- High-quality CPR for adults, children, and infants
- The AHA Chain of Survival, specifically the BLS components
- Important early use of an AED
- Effective ventilations using a barrier device
- Importance of teams in multirescuer resuscitation and performance as an effective team member during multirescuer CPR
- Relief of foreign-body airway obstruction (choking) for adults and infants
FAQs
You will receive your American Heart Association ECard within 2-5 business days after the completion of your course.
For courses sponsored by organizations, Ecards will be sent to your supervisor. Please contact your workplace for a copy
ECard
Before reaching out to our Training Center to request a new card, first try to run a few searches in your email inbox to make sure you didn’t overlook the email with the link to access your eCard.
- Search and make sure you don’t have any emails from: No-eccreply@heart.org or eCards@heart.org
Print Card
If our Training Center printed a physical card, or told you to expect your card by mail.
Contact us for a replacement Print Card.
If you took this course with your organization, please contact your supervisor or Healthcare Director for a copy
For American Heart Association courses that include psychomotor skills such as CPR, students must complete a hands-on skills session to obtain an AHA course completion card. With AHA blended learning, students will practice and test skills to ensure competency during the hands-on skills session. We offer a variety of blended learning and eLearning courses.
The AHA does not mandate a minimum age requirement for learning CPR. The ability to perform CPR is based more on body strength than age. Studies have shown that children as young as nine years old can learn and retain CPR skills. Please speak one of our AHA Instructors if you have any concerns.
The science in the official AHA Guidelines for CPR and ECC shows that victims have a greater chance of survival from cardiac arrest when high-quality CPR includes use of an AED.
The Heartsaver® CPR AED is probably best for you.
The American Heart Association’s BLS courses are for anyone with limited or no medical training who needs a course completion card for job, regulatory or other requirements. While these courses are designed to meet OSHA requirements, OSHA does not review or approve any courses for compliance.
In CPR and first aid training,
- An infant is younger than one year
- A child is older than one year and has not reached puberty
- An adult is anyone who has gone through or is going through puberty
The AHA does not produce materials in Braille. However, through the proper channels we can provide you a student manual/workbook in digital format for your use.
To check the validity of an AHA course completion card, contact the Training Center that issued the card. The Training Center’s information can be found on the back of the card.
A: Hands-Only CPR is CPR without mouth-to-mouth breaths. It is recommended for use by bystanders who see a teen or adult suddenly collapse in an “out-of-hospital” setting (such as at home, at work or in a park). It consists of two easy steps:
- Call 9-1-1 (or send someone to do that).
- Push hard and fast in the center of the chest at a rate of 100-120 pushes per minute.
The AHA recommends that healthcare providers use conventional CPR with a combination of breaths and compressions. Conventional CPR should also be used for
- All infants (up to age 1)
- Children (up to puberty)
- Anyone found already unconscious and not breathing normally
- Any victims of drowning, drug overdose, collapse due to breathing problems, or prolonged cardiac arrest