The AHA offers several types of courses related to CPR. When it comes to emergency care training and certification, it's important to understand the difference between BLS and CPR certification. For example, BLS courses are designed for healthcare providers who need to learn how to perform basic life support skills such as chest compressions and rescue breathing.
Certification: To become certified in CPR, healthcare professionals must complete an approved course. This course typically includes lectures on topics such as cardiovascular system anatomy and physiology, cardiac arrest signs and symptoms, and how to perform chest compressions and rescue breaths.
Renewal: To maintain certification status, CPR-certified individuals must renew their certification every two years by taking a refresher course or re-taking the full certification course. The refresher courses typically include lectures on updates to CPR guidelines and hands-on practice with manikins or simulation models.
Skills Practice: Healthcare professionals should practice their CPR skills regularly, even when not required for renewal purposes. This helps ensure they can perform CPR correctly if needed in an emergency situation. Regular practice also helps them stay familiar with current guidelines and techniques to provide the best care possible for patients requiring resuscitation efforts.
Evaluation: Healthcare professionals should be evaluated periodically by qualified instructors to ensure that they perform CPR correctly according to current guidelines and standards of care. An evaluation may occur during scheduled skills practice sessions or clinical rotations at hospitals or other healthcare facilities where resuscitation efforts may be necessary.
Scenarios: In addition to evaluating healthcare professionals’ skills with manikins or simulation models, instructors may also use realistic scenarios involving actors playing patients who require resuscitation efforts to assess how well students can apply their knowledge and skills in real-life situations. Scenarios help evaluate how well students respond under pressure while providing critical care interventions such as administering medications or defibrillation shocks.
Debriefing: Debriefing is the process of discussing the CPR training scenario with the healthcare provider after they have completed it. This typically involves the instructor asking the provider questions about their experience and decision-making in the scenario and providing additional feedback and guidance. The goal of debriefing is to help the provider reflect on their performance and learn from their experience.
Manikin: A manikin is a medical training tool used to simulate a human body. It is often used in healthcare training courses to help students practice various medical procedures and techniques, such as CPR.
Feedback: Feedback is a type of information or communication that is provided to someone to help them improve their performance. In healthcare training, feedback is often given to students to help them understand what they are doing well and where they may need to improve their skills.
Evaluation: Evaluation is the process of assessing someone's performance or abilities to determine their level of knowledge, skill, or competency. In healthcare training, evaluations are often used to assess students' progress and to identify areas where they may need additional support or instruction.
Realistic: In a CPR training scenario, realism refers to the extent to which the scenario mirrors a real-life situation. For example, a CPR training scenario might involve a simulated patient who is unconscious and not breathing, just as a real patient would be in a real-life situation.
Challenging: A challenging CPR training scenario presents the healthcare provider with a difficult situation they must navigate to perform CPR successfully. For example, a challenging scenario might involve a patient who is in cardiac arrest and requires immediate CPR to survive.
