19/09/2021
When it comes to understanding emergency response training for healthcare professionals, confusion is common. At least in Canada, there are fine lines that employers (and as a result, the employees) must abide by as per their provincial Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) organization AND policies and practices set out by their regulating bodies, as per the Health Professions Act (HPA).
Although BLS/CPR is an unregulated form of emergency response training, approved by the regulating bodies of some health professions to maintain member licensing, acceptance of online-only BLS/CPR courses are concerning for the following reasons:
1. There are no online-only courses offered by any Canadian regulated or approved emergency response agency.
2. Online-only BLS/CPR courses are not set up to ensure that the registrant and the participant are the same person.
3. The main purposes of BLS/CPR should be to review/update the necessary skills and increase practitioner confidence in their use of the learnt skills, where appropriate.
Unfortunately, online-only BLS/CPR courses cannot guarantee such responses - as stated in their disclaimers. As such, this can be considered a concern for public safety.
We recognize it is difficult to push for thorough understanding and change policy for immediate benefit to public safety. However, as a healthcare practitioner, how you decide to certify your emergency response training should be guided by the ethical practice as a healthcare practitioner rather then the affordability and convenience of training online.
