It’s a typical scene out of a movie. An individual falls to the ground suffering medical complications and a healthcare professional runs to the rescue to perform Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) and other basic lifesaving techniques. There seems to be a public expectation for medical professionals to know these skills, yet without practice and the right knowledge of the latest guidelines, it’s difficult to expect anyone to have the best knowledge for performing the safest techniques.
That’s where the American Heart Association (AHA) Basic Life Support (BLS) course comes into play at Texas Children’s. A hospital-wide initiative aims to provide this training and certification for all direct caregivers.
“The course teaches the skills to recognize, assess patients and respond accordingly,” said Gemma Elegores, Clinical Training and Development Education Specialist and AHA Program Director. The BLS course is designed to teach the critical basic life safety skills that each and every healthcare provider should have.
“Having more people competent in Basic Life Support allows for a quicker response time and initiation of life-saving care,” said Dr. David Young, Pediatric Anesthesiologist and AHA Medical Director. “All of the trained healthcare providers can also serve the community by acting as first responders to life-threatening events until arrival of designated personnel.”
While the expectation might be for everyone to know these basic skills, Young said the skills are not often being practiced, making it challenging to recall and perform all the correct steps during an emergency.
“Scientific studies have shown significant decay in performance among health care providers regarding life support knowledge and procedural skills including the concepts within Basic Life Support,” Young said. “An effective approach to mitigate this decay is to develop regularly scheduled re-training periods such as the approach taken at Texas Children’s Hospital.”
After completing the courses, participants receive certification from the American Heart Association (AHA) for 2 years. AHA guidelines change every 5 years, but the course is always updated with the most current recommendations.