Advanced cardiac life support

Advanced cardiac life support
Cardiopulmonary resuscitation of an avalanche victim who was medically evacuated to Craig Joint Theater Hospital in February 2010
Other names	Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support, ACLS
Specialty	Emergency Medicine, Cardiology, Critical Care, Anesthesia
Uses	Cardiac arrest treatment, Cardiovascular emergency treatment
Frequency	Common
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Advanced cardiac life support, advanced cardiovascular life support (ACLS) refers to a set of clinical guidelines for the urgent and emergent treatment of life-threatening cardiovascular conditions that will cause or have caused cardiac arrest, using advanced medical procedures, medications, and techniques. ACLS expands on Basic Life Support (BLS) by adding recommendations on additional medication and advanced procedure use to the CPR guidelines that are fundamental and efficacious in BLS. ACLS is practiced by advanced medical providers including physicians, some nurses and paramedics;^[1] these providers are usually required to hold certifications in ACLS care.

While "ACLS" is almost always semantically interchangeable with the term "Advanced Life Support" (ALS), when used distinctly, ACLS tends to refer to the immediate cardiac care, while ALS tends to refer to more specialized resuscitation care such as ECMO and PCI. In the EMS community, "ALS" may refer to the advanced care provided by paramedics while "BLS" may refer to the fundamental care provided by EMTs and EMRs; without these terms referring to cardiovascular-specific care.