Everything you need to know about the Advanced Life support or ALS

There’s no limit to degree of severity that a medical emergency can throw. What if a BLS is not enough? What if the patient needed some advanced medical care? Well, we provide them with advanced life support – a notch higher than Basic life support. Unlike the latter, the ALS is not restricted in administering drugs as well.

In this BLS article, we explained the circumstances that can be controlled by a BLS ambulance or personnel. We also looked at some of the differences between advanced life support and basic life support medical care. In this article our focus would be on ALS ambulance and/or care.

What is an ALS?

As already suggested above, an ALS or advanced life support is an improvement over the BLS. They assume importance in circumstances where a FR or first responder is not enough and patients need a higher level of medical support, say, a paramedic. But an ALS is not the highest level of medical care yet. If needed, a patient can take critical care medical support as well which are manned by a RN (registered nurse) or a specialized doctor. An ALS ambulance or personnel is trained and allowed to administer drugs as well (which can’t be done by a BLS ambulance or staff).

Who needs an advanced life support medical care?

Mostly the ones who need administration of drugs. The intent is to provide tend to those patients who can’t be treated by a simple ‘CAB’ or DRS-CABCDE procedure. Some of the medical conditions which necessitates the use of advanced life support are –

• A patient who is on continuous IV medicine known in medical parlance as Intravenous cannulation.
• A patient who is on cardiac monitor or cardiac defibrillation.
• Patients with compromised airway or the ones in need of tracheal intubation.
• Advanced cardiac care
• Obstetrical patients
• Pediatric ALS
• Patients undergoing PHTLS, BTLS and ITLS, etc.

The list can vary from state to state and country to country. But in a nutshell, every patient who has serious issues with blood circulation, breathing and airway, such that a BLS can’t handle it, needs an advanced life support.

Who can be an ALS personnel?

Again, there’s no single guideline. Every country has its own statutes regarding this. Broadly, we can say that to be able to act and provide an advanced life support, one needs to be trained as an EMT (emergency medical technicians), paramedics or medics. The definition of these terms may differ as well. But for an ALS in a hospital, generally the work has to be done by a nurse or a doctor.

What is the basic principle or procedure of an advanced life support?

The base assumption of any ALS demanding condition is that a BLS has/is already being administered. The job of an ALS is to monitor electrical activity of heart – called as cardiac monitoring. An ALS is usually invoked when a VF or cardiac arrest has been established. What follows is an algorithm which seeks to monitor and control cardiac activities and maintain a breathing passageway. Defibrillation and CPR are the keywords here. In most organizations, a procedure known as ‘4H’s and 4T’s’ is followed. 4 H’s stands for hypoxia, hypovolemia, hyper or hypokalemia and Hypo or hyperthermia. 4 T’s stands for Tension pneumothorax, tamponade, toxic and thromboembolism.

What are some of the must have drugs and equipment overboard an ALS ambulance?

Though states are independent to make their own rules governing an advanced life support ambulance, there are some items that remain same for all of them. For instance, the govt. of Delhi necessitates the presence of devices likeventilation and airway equipment, defibrillator and cardiac monitors, infusions, etc. and drugs like saline, colloid, epinephrine, etc.

Author Bio

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Visit www.amblife.com to know more about them.

Amb life is an online portal that engages in providing users and Ambulance Service Providers with a platform to connect – choose, enquire and hire an air ambulance or ground ambulance. For more information, visit http://www.amblife.com/