Advanced Skills
Extensive medical knowledge and rigorous hands-on training and practice are required to master ACLS. Only qualified health care providers can provide ACLS, as it requires the ability to manage the patient's airway, initiate IV access, read and interpret electrocardiograms, and understand emergency pharmacology; these include physicians (DOs and MDs), pharmacists (PharmDs), dentists (DDS and DMDs), midlevel practitioners (PAs and NPs), nurses (RNs), and paramedics. Other emergency responders may also be trained. Some health professionals, or even lay rescuers, may be trained in basic life support (BLS), especially cardiopulmonary resuscitation or CPR. When a sudden cardiac arrest occurs, immediate CPR is a vital link in the chain of survival. Another important link is early defibrillation, which has improved greatly with the widespread availability of AEDs.
Read more about this topic: Advanced Cardiac Life Support
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