ACLS Course Overview

This ProTrainings ProACLS course has been designed for the busy healthcare professional who participates in, or directs the management of, cardiovascular emergencies and cardiac arrest situations.

In this course overview lesson, we'll be covering your course goals or objectives and basically outline everything that will be in the course from A to Z. And at the end of the lesson, we'll provide you with a Word about medical emergency teams and rapid response teams.

The aim of this course is to help you enhance your skills, including being better able to recognize and treat cardiopulmonary arrest, post-cardiac arrest, acute arrhythmias, stroke, and acute coronary syndrome, or ACS for short.

Throughout this ProACLS program, you'll be actively participating, by combining cognitive and interactive simulation, and while covering scenarios based on actual medical emergencies. And by the end of your training program, you should be much more equipped at improving the outcomes of adult patients who are suffering from cardiac arrest and other cardiopulmonary emergencies.

Your training should also help you become more effective at recognizing and intervening with the proper care in any cardiac-related emergency.

It doesn't matter if you're a healthcare provider who works in a pre-hospital setting or you're part of a larger in-hospital team. ProACLS will help you enhance your skills regardless of where you work and when you work.

ProACLS Course Objectives

Your ProACLS certification course includes the following 10 objectives:

1. Evaluating and treating adult patients with basic life support skills, including the provision of early chest compressions and the proper utilization and timing of an automated external defibrillator.
2. Recognizing and managing respiratory arrest in adult patients.
3. Recognizing and managing acute coronary syndrome, including the appropriate characteristics.
4. Recognizing and managing the signs and symptoms of stroke, including the appropriate characteristics.
5. Recognizing and treating both bradyarrhythmias and tachyarrhythmias that could result in cardiac arrest or complicate the resuscitation process and outcome.
6. Recognizing and treating cardiac arrest, including immediate post-cardiac arrest care.
7. Evaluating your resuscitation efforts during cardiac arrest scenarios through continuous assessment of cardiopulmonary resuscitation, including monitoring patients' physiological responses and delivering real-time feedback in a team setting.
8. Demonstrating effective communication as either team leader or as a team member in a high-performing team, while also recognizing the impact of team dynamics on overall team performance.
9. Learning about and utilizing the rapid response of a medical emergency team that will help contribute to the improvement of patient outcomes and defining the guidelines for the systems of care.
10. Becoming more proficient with the proper administration of ACLS medications.

Now let's go over the ProTraining ProACLS course design. To help you achieve these important objectives, we've included practice sessions and megacode evaluations.

These practice learning stations will give you the opportunity to actively engage and learn from the following:

• The simulation of clinical cardiac emergency scenarios
• The video demonstrations of these scenarios
• Scenario-based role playing
• Practicing effective high-performing team behaviors

During the testing phase of your ProACLS course, you'll be required to pass a megacode evaluation station in order to properly validate the achievement of your course objectives.

Also, a simulated cardiac arrest scenario will help evaluate you in the following areas:

• Your competency of all core case materials and skills
• Your competency of ACLS algorithms
• Your adequate understanding of arrythmia interpretation
• Your proper use of appropriate basic ACLS drugs and therapies
• Your ability to perform effective leadership skills within a high-performing team environment

A Word About Medical Emergency Teams and Rapid Response Teams

Many hospitals have incorporated the use of medical emergency teams (MET) or rapid response teams (RRT). The purpose of these teams is to improve patient outcomes by properly identifying and treating early clinical deterioration.

In-hospital cardiac arrest is often preceded by physiologic changes in the patient. In fact, recent studies have shown that nearly 80 percent of hospitalized patients with cardiorespiratory arrest first had abnormal documented vital signs for up to eight hours before the actual arrest occurred.

The vast majority of these changes can and should be recognized by monitoring routine vital signs. Proper intervention before this clinical deterioration or cardiac arrest should be possible.

The Route of Care for the Unstable Patient:

Rapid Response Team → Code Team → Critical Care Team

The management of life-threatening cardiac emergencies requires the integration of multidisciplinary teams that can involve rapid response teams, cardiac arrest teams, and intensive care specialists to achieve the ultimate goal – the survival of the patient. Team leaders, in particular, have an essential role in this coordinated effort of care with other team members and other specialists.