Advanced Cardiac Life Support Provider (ACLS)

Description
The goal of Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support (ACLS) is to achieve the best possible outcome for individuals who are experiencing a life-threatening event. ACLS is a series of evidence-based responses simple enough to be committed to memory and recalled under moments of stress.
These ACLS protocols have been developed through research, patient case studies, clinical studies, and opinions of experts in the field. The gold standard in the United States and other countries is the course curriculum published by the American Heart Association (AHA). Previously, the AHA released periodic updates to their Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) and Emergency Cardiovascular Care (ECC) guidelines on a five-year cycle, with the most recent update published in 2015. Moving forward, the AHA will no longer wait five years between updates; instead, it will maintain the most up-to-date recommendations online at ECCguidelines.heart.org.

Health care providers are recommended to supplement the materials presented in this handbook with the guidelines published by the AHA and refer to the most current interventions and rationales throughout their study of ACLS.
Determining whether an individual is conscious or unconscious can be done very quickly. If you notice someone in distress, lying down in a public place, or possibly injured, call out to them.
• Make sure the scene is safe before approaching the individual and conducting the BLS or ACLS Survey.
• When encountering an individual who is “down,” the first assessment to make is whether they are conscious or unconscious.
If the individual is unconscious, then start with the BLS Survey and move on to the ACLS Survey.
If they are conscious, then start with the ACLS survey.