What Is Advanced Life Support (ALS)?
Advanced Life Support (ALS) is an advanced set of algorithms and protocols that extend past Basic Life Support to further assist the injured or ill patient in opening up their airways, breathing and getting air throughout the body, and promoting blood circulation in emergency situations.
There are many different aspects and components to ALS. Some of them include:
– Advanced Cardiac Life Support
– Pediatric Advanced Life Support
– Rapid Sequence Induction
– Cardiac Monitoring
– Cardiac Defibrillation
– IV Management and Therapy
– Tracheal Intubation
– Medical Administration
– Needle Decompression
– Surgical and Needle Cricothyrotomy
– Intraosseous Access and Fusion
– Transcutaneous Pacing
– Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and much more!
Who Can Perform ALS?
Many are many healthcare, medical, and regular work professionals who can learn and perform advanced life support. They just have to be trained and certified. Outside the hospital, usually paramedics and EMTs know ALS. Paramedics are usually always skilled in ALS. While Paramedics are usually in BLS and sometimes ALS.
In the hospital, ALS is usually given to patient by the doctor and registered nurses plus a team of medical staff built around them to assist if necessary. These nurses and doctors might have specialty training in emergency care, intensive care, general medicine, internal medicine, or anesthetics.
See also Qid medical abbreviation
How To Receive My Advanced Life Support (ALS) Certification?
As explained earlier, there are different specializations for advanced life support. To get certified in ALS though, you first need to be certified in Basic Life Support (BLS). These courses are usually very short and span over a couple days.
Students can usually get certified through their local university, community college, hospital, or recreational facility. As with BLS, just make sure your program is accredited by The American Heart Association.