BLS 100% Online?

Editorial Team / Admin · Aug 20

Chances are if it's 100% online and that online portion doesn't include a Zoom skills demonstration with a manikin that gets shipped to you or you pick up somewhere, it's not legit.

Emergent, RN · Aug 20

That's why I asked, it sounded suspicious to me. Thanks a lot!

klone, MSN, RN · Aug 21

Yep, AHA requires that BLS also have a hands-on skills portion.

RNNPICU, BSN, RN · Aug 21

The online portion is the material. You still have to do a hands-on skills session.

You have to have an active BLS to do it though.

Just be cautious if there are those suggesting otherwise. I would look closely at those that do.

Advanced Practice Columnist / Guide · Aug 23

I've done BLS and ACLS with the didactic material completely online through AHA. Testing of knowledge is all online (including the mega code which in my years of having ACLS always was in-person with an instructor in the past). Once completed, there are multiple sites for in-person skills demonstration in my metro area. There are no staff there...you get a code to enter the room and it is just you, infant/child/adult mannequins, ambu-bags of various sizes, and a computer attached to the mannequins. The computer gives you prompts and checks your technique and will make you repeat if your compression depth or compression to ventilation ratios are wrong. This is the only option our hospital is paying for now.

Emergent, RN · Aug 24

Corey Narry said:

I've done BLS and ACLS with the didactic material completely online through AHA. Testing of knowledge is all online (including the mega code which in my years of having ACLS always was in-person with an instructor in the past). Once completed, there are multiple sites for in-person skills demonstration in my metro area. There are no staff there...you get a code to enter the room and it is just you, infant/child/adult mannequins, ambu-bags of various sizes, and a computer attached to the mannequins. The computer gives you prompts and checks your technique and will make you repeat if your compression depth or compression to ventilation ratios are wrong. This is the only option our hospital is paying for now.

Thanks, maybe I'll do that after all. I've done it that way before. I'm not currently employed but considering getting a per diem job if I can. I'm fully retired but might want to still do a little bit of nursing. I've been dabbling in some other types of work. I worked in a plant nursery this Summer and that job has ended.

floydnightingale · Aug 28

I retired just ahead of the Coof but by that time the BLS renewals were completely online, no hands-on beyond clicking a key, and not being of the generation that grew up on video games I couldn't do it and I had a tech who taught CPR classes do it for me. Twice in a row.

This was at a Level I Trauma Center in a system respected on the level of Mayo Clinic or John Hopkins.

I found all those online education modules to be less than worthless, whether for CEs or required competencies. We all cheated, which I didn't feel bad about as no learning was accomplished, and the stroke modules had an answer key in the nursing office. Borrow it at will but bring it back.

Even the TNCC and ENPC, which were two day real classes, were awful with test questions completely unrelated to what was taught.