ACLS
Emergency Medicine (EM) and the prehospital world are different than many environments in medicine. We get minimal information at the time of patient arrival while at the same time the disease process that is taking place has not quite defined itself - Salim R. Rezaie
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What are the updated 2025 Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support (ACLS) guidelines from the American Heart Association (AHA)?
The 2025 American Heart Association ACLS guidelines introduce several critical changes, most notably discontinuing routine calcium administration during cardiac arrest, expanding recommendations for extracorporeal CPR in select patients, and standardizing post-arrest temperature management for all patients who don't follow commands after return of spontaneous circulation.
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2025 AHA Adult Advanced Life Support Recommendations
Extensive synopsis of the updated AHA ACLS recommendations...
What's New in the AHA 2025 CPR & ECC Guidelines
The guidelines now stress the importance of community-wide preparedness: public access defibrillation, opioid overdose response programs, and structured EMS protocols.
Articles of Interest
Takeaways from the ‘most-watched cardiac arrest in the history of humankind’
The emergency physicians who resuscitated Damar Hamlin share their insights into SCA and CPR training.
2025 AHA CPR guidelines: Changes to mechanical CPR, choking, single chain of survival
The American Heart Association’s 2025 update to CPR and ECC introduces new algorithms and protocols aimed at boosting EMS and bystander effectiveness. “The American Heart Association’s 2025 CPR guidelines represent gold standard science. It reflects a rigorous examination of the most up-to-date evidence that guides how resuscitation is provided for critically ill patients,” said Dr. Ashish Panchal, chair of the American Heart Association’s Emergency Cardiovascular Care Science Committee and professor of emergency medicine at The Ohio State University. “As the science continues to evolve, it’s important that we continue to review new research specific to the scientific questions considered of greatest clinical significance that affect how we deliver life-saving care.”
ACLS and ROSC in the ED: Talitha Cumi
Despite its portrayal in Hollywood, the majority of patients do not reach hospital discharge, and even fewer survive with good neurologic outcome. As research continues, clinicians should focus on what has been shown to provide the best possible chance at survival with good neurologic outcome.
AHA 2025: What’s New in CPR, ACLS, PALS & Heartsaver
On October 22, 2025, the American Heart Association (AHA) released the new 2025 CPR & ECC Guidelines, the first full refresh since 2020. This isn’t a cosmetic edit. The update tightens how we teach, how people practice, and how teams perform when a real arrest hits. If you train learners or own emergency readiness at your facility, this is your new baseline.
Beyond ACLS: A New Pulseless Electrical Activity Algorithm
Patients with pulseless electrical activity (PEA) account for almost 1/3 of cardiac arrest and even more troublesome is that the survival rate is significantly worse than patients with shockable rhythms. Both the European and American ACLS guidelines stress the importance of quickly finding and addressing the cause of PEA. This is traditionally done with recalling the 5 to 6 H’s and T’s, but during cardiopulmonary resuscitation it is difficult to recall all 13 causes of PEA
Beyond ACLS: Cognitively Offloading During a Cardiac Arrest
It takes up quite a bit of mental bandwidth to ensure that CPR is performed well and there is already enough going on during the resuscitation, so is there a way that we can cognitively offload our minds?
Doing More for Patients Often Does No Good
We’ve assumed, for the most part, that advanced life support is better than basic life support — so much so that in most areas where both options are available, advanced life support is almost always used. But a recent study in JAMA Internal Medicine brings this assumption into question.
Resources
2025 American Heart Association Guidelines for CPR and ECC
These guidelines are based on the most current and comprehensive review of resuscitation science, systems, protocols, and education.
Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support (ACLS) Course
The AHA’s ACLS course builds on the foundation of lifesaving BLS skills, emphasizing the importance of continuous, high-quality CPR. Reflects science and education from the American Heart Association Guidelines Update for CPR and Emergency Cardiovascular Care (ECC).
