Advanced Cardiac Life Support

Advanced cardiac life support or advanced cardiovascular life support (ACLS) refers to a set of clinical interventions for the urgent treatment of cardiac arrest, stroke and other life-threatening medical emergencies, as well as the knowledge and skills to deploy those interventions. Outside North America, Advanced Life Support is used.

Only qualified health care providers can provide ACLS, as it requires the ability to manage the person's airway, initiate IV access, read and interpret electrocardiograms, and understand emergency pharmacology; these include physicians, pharmacists (PharmDs), dentists, advanced practice providers (PAs and NPs), respiratory therapists (RTs), nurses (RNs), paramedics (EMT-Ps) and other advanced life support EMTs (Advanced EMT's for example). 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, which makes up the core foundation of ACLS. 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 Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs).

ACLS often starts with analyzing the patient's heart rhythms with a manual defibrillator. In contrast to an AED in BLS, where the machine decides when and how to shock a patient, the ACLS team leader makes those decisions based on rhythms on the monitor and patient's vital signs. The next steps in ACLS are insertion of intravenous (IV) lines and placement of various airway devices. Commonly used ACLS drugs, such as epinephrine and amiodarone, are then administered. The ACLS personnel quickly search for possible reversible causes of cardiac arrest (i.e. the H's and T's, heart attack). Based on their diagnosis, more specific treatments are given. These treatments may be medical such as IV injection of an antidote for drug overdose, or surgical such as insertion of a chest tube for those with tension pneumothoraces or hemothoraces.

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Wikipedia