Basic Life Support (BLS)

Basic Life Support (BLS) is the foundational course for healthcare professionals and trained first responders who provide care to patients in a wide variety of in-facility and prehospital settings.

BLS is the cornerstone program for healthcare professionals.As the gold standard, Heart & Stroke’s BLS training courses teach the theoretical and hands-on skills needed to respond to medical emergencies and drives the best possible patient outcomes.

Infused with Heart & Stroke’s 2020 Guidelines for CPR and ECC, our new BLS program offers an engaging and flexible new way of learning.

Powered by a new, user-friendly online platform, students can learn BLS in either a blended learning format (self-paced online learning combined with in-person, instructor-led skills training), or for those who require a more traditional format, a completely in-person course that’s led by a qualified instructor.

These options ensure you can choose the learning format that suits your needs and your schedule.In this course, you will learn the fundamental skills of high-quality cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) for victims of all ages.

You will practice delivering these skills as a single rescuer and as a member of a multi-rescuer team.The skills you learn in BLS will enable you to:

• Recognize a cardiac arrest

• Activate the emergency response system early

• Respond quickly and confidently

• Perform high-quality single-rescuer CPR and multi-rescuer team CPR

This course will ensure people in cardiac arrest have the best chance of survival.

Features

• Reflects the most recent science from the 2020 Guidelines Update for CPR and ECC and adapted for Canada’s unique clinical health care practice, pharmacology and systems of care.

• Supports a variety of learning styles with two proven learning formats, including a blended format that allows students to learn at their own pace online and receive focused skills training in-person.

• Incorporates use of feedback devices, proven to improve learning and skills mastery, into the programming during in-person practice and testing.

• Reinforces the importance of direct hands-on practice and coaching in acquiring and elevating skills proficiency.

• Emphasizes the critical importance of high-quality CPR, including coordinated team dynamics. 

• Provides engaging video-based content with real world scenarios.

Content

The BLS course focuses on building knowledge so you are confident and ready to perform high-quality CPR in a wide variety of settings. The course covers:

• Chain of Survival

• 1-rescuer / 2-rescuer CPR

• High-quality chest compressions with a feedback device

• Multi-rescuer team CPR

• Adult, Child and Infant CPR and relief of choking

• Use of an AED

• Effective ventilations using a barrier device and bag-mask device

• EXPANDED: Opioid-associated life-threatening emergencies

• NEW: Role of the CPR coach; Maternal cardiac arrest; Anaphylaxis; Drowning; Heart attack and stroke; and, Other life-threatening emergencies

Options To Complete BLS Provider Training:

• Instructor-led (in-class). Complete the training fully in-class. BLS Full course training has a duration of about 3.5 hours, and BLS renewal course has a duration of about 2.5 hours in-class.

• Blended training (online and in-class). Complete portion of the training online at your own pace and time (on average about 2 hours); and attend an in-class session to complete the physical portion of the training for about 1.5 hours.

Part 1:

Online: a self-paced, cognitive learning and assessment program with easy access to a rich array of resources, activities, learning videos, knowledge checks and an electronic exam.

Once you have completed the first part of the program you will move on to the in-person portion. 

Part 2:

In-class: an instructor-led, classroom-based session where you will benefit from ample opportunity for hands-on skills practice, expert coaching, debriefing, team scenarios and comprehensive skills testing.