Healthcare CPR, AED & First Aid Essentials™

What you will learn

This program has four parts. By the end of each part, you should be able to:

Part 1: Foundations of Emergency Response, Scene Safety & Adult CPR

• Explain the adult and pediatric Chains of Survival and why early recognition and action improve outcomes.
• Apply legal, ethical, and safety principles when responding to an emergency.
• Assess an emergency scene, check responsiveness, and activate EMS effectively.
• Recognize likely cardiac arrest, including abnormal breathing patterns that require urgent action.
• Perform high-quality adult CPR using correct compression technique, rescue breathing, and recovery position principles.
• Coordinate with others during a response and avoid common errors that reduce CPR quality.

Part 2: Child & Infant CPR, AED Use & Choking Emergencies

• Recognize signs of life-threatening pediatric emergencies and decide when CPR, AED use, or choking care is needed.
• Perform high-quality child CPR using correct assessment steps, compression technique, ventilation ratios, and recovery-position decisions.
• Perform high-quality infant CPR using appropriate assessment methods, compression techniques, rescue breaths, and team-response adaptations.
• Use an AED safely in pediatric emergencies, including selecting pads, placing them correctly, and resuming CPR appropriately after analysis or shock delivery.
• Respond appropriately to mild and severe choking emergencies in adults, children, and infants, including care for an unconscious victim and transition to CPR.
• Coordinate effectively during two-rescuer pediatric resuscitation and apply correct actions in realistic child and infant emergency scenarios.

Part 3: First Aid for Medical Emergencies & Life-Threatening Conditions

• Recognize signs and symptoms of common medical emergencies and life-threatening conditions.
• Apply appropriate first aid actions for bleeding, shock, cardiac, neurological, allergic, respiratory, poisoning, and environmental emergencies.
• Decide when to activate EMS and when CPR or AED response may become necessary.
• Protect yourself and others by using safe first aid practices and universal precautions.
• Respond more confidently to realistic emergency scenarios using evidence-informed decision-making.

Part 4: Trauma Care, Environmental Emergencies & Comprehensive Emergency Response

• Assess emergency scenes and identify life-threatening trauma and environmental hazards.
• Apply appropriate first aid interventions for bleeding, wounds, burns, musculoskeletal injuries, and head, neck, and spinal emergencies.
• Differentiate when to monitor, immobilize, cool, protect, or urgently escalate care to Emergency Medical Services.
• Support adults and children during emergencies using calm communication, psychological first aid, and clear handoff reporting.
• Integrate CPR, AED use, trauma care, and ongoing monitoring across realistic emergency response scenarios.
• Prepare for a comprehensive final examination covering core CPR, AED, first aid, trauma, and emergency response principles.

Program details

• Self-paced online program for healthcare professionals
• Program length: 10 hours, in four parts
• Includes graded assessments you must pass to complete the program
• Earn a downloadable Certificate of Completion upon successful program completion—ideal for documenting professional development and submitting to your employer for potential reimbursement
• Each certificate has a verification ID that employers can check at nahcp.com/verify

Program length describes the length of the program, not a number of continuing-education credits. Check with your employer or licensing board before submitting a program for credit or reimbursement.