What is Basic Life Support (BLS)?
Healthcare providers benefit from courses that teach Basic Life Support (BLS). Our campuses offer a Basic Life Support for Healthcare Providers course from the American Heart Association, but many wonder what a BLS course covers and how it prepares EMTs, Paramedics, and Registered Nurses for their fields.
The basics of BLS
Basic Life Support involves the techniques and procedures that can keep a person alive until they reach the hospital and can receive more advanced medical care. In the BLS course, students will learn how to recognize life-threatening emergencies and act accordingly.
The Basic Life Support teaches students how to perform CPR and use an AED. Learn about the critical concepts of high-quality CPR, as well as techniques for 1-rescuer and 2-rescuer CPR and AED for adult, child and infant.
BLS includes understanding the Chain of Survival of recognition, CPR, AED, basic and advanced emergency medical services, and advanced life-support and post-cardiac arrest care.
The difference in a life-threatening situation
Individuals who perform BLS need to know the differences between adult and child rescue techniques. What works for an adult could be deadly for a small child. Knowing the right way to perform CPR or other rescue techniques on patients is critical to their survival.
BLS includes rescue breathing techniques. Opening airways and keeping a patient breathing is vital. The brain begins to die after six minutes without oxygen. Restoring the breathing of a patient means the difference between life and death. Rescue breathing techniques provide the basic life support for an emergency patient.
First aid techniques are also an important part of BLS. Learn how to relieve adults and children of choking. When someone is choking, their airway is blocked by a foreign object. Abdominal thrusts can help dislodge the object.
Basic Life Support is a critical healthcare service for emergency patients. Without BLS, patients may not be able to survive. This is why the techniques are called basic life support. BLS saves a patient鈥檚 life and gets him/her into a stable condition for further care.
Health Career Institute is an authorized training center for the American Heart Association鈥檚 Basic Life Support for Healthcare Providers., or contact us for more information.
