What’s the Difference? Comparing ACLS, BLS, and PALS Head-to-Head
When it comes to emergency medical training, ACLS, BLS, and PALS are three essential certifications that equip individuals with life-saving skills. While they share the common goal of improving patient outcomes during medical emergencies, each course serves a different purpose and is tailored to specific patient populations and professional roles. We’ll break down the key differences between these certifications and help you decide which one is right for you.
BLS: Basic Life Support
Who It’s For:
While BLS was designed for all healthcare professionals, it can also be a valuable training for teachers, coaches, security personnel, medical and dental staff, or others in a position where they may be responding to a medical emergency. It’s also the foundation upon which more advanced courses, such as ACLS and PALS, are built.
What You’ll Learn:
BLS training focuses on core emergency response techniques needed in the critical first moments of a life-threatening event, especially before advanced help arrives. Techniques include:
● Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR): You’ll learn how to deliver effective chest compressions and rescue breaths to adults, children, and infants.
● Use of AEDs (Automated External Defibrillators): BLS teaches you how to operate an AED, a device used to restore a normal heart rhythm in cases of sudden cardiac arrest.
● Airway Management: Simple yet critical methods like the head-tilt/chin-lift and jaw thrust maneuvers to open and maintain a clear airway.
● Rescue Breathing: Techniques for delivering mouth-to-mouth or mouth-to-mask ventilation to those not breathing adequately.
● Choking Relief: How to assist someone who is choking using abdominal thrusts and CPR techniques.
Why this course makes sense:
You may want to choose this course if you’re new to healthcare or a non-advanced provider, as a prerequisite for ACLS or PALS, or if your job requires basic emergency response skills (e.g., CNA, MA, EMT, or dental staff).
ACLS: Advanced Cardiac Life Support
Who It’s For:
ACLS is designed for medical professionals involved in managing cardiovascular emergencies, including doctors, nurses, paramedics, and those working in emergency, critical care, or inpatient hospital settings. A solid understanding of BLS is expected before enrolling.
What You’ll Learn:
ACLS builds on the foundational skills of BLS and introduces more complex medical interventions, including:
● Advanced Airway Management: Techniques like endotracheal intubation and the use of supraglottic airway devices for patients in respiratory distress or arrest.
● ECG Interpretation and Arrhythmia Recognition: Learn to identify and respond to life-threatening heart rhythms such as ventricular fibrillation, tachycardia, and asystole.
● Defibrillation and Cardioversion: Learn the differences between synchronized cardioversion and unsynchronized defibrillation, and how to perform both.
● Emergency Drug Administration: Proper use of medications like epinephrine, amiodarone, and atropine during cardiac events.
● Post-Cardiac Arrest Care: Understanding care strategies like therapeutic hypothermia and hemodynamic stabilization after resuscitation.
● Team Leadership and Communication: ACLS also includes guidance on effective team dynamics, ensuring that all members understand their roles during a high-pressure emergency.
Why this course makes sense:
If your role includes responding to adult cardiac or respiratory arrest, if you're working in ER, ICU, telemetry, or acute care, or if you're an advanced provider who needs to manage codes or rapid responses.
PALS: Pediatric Advanced Life Support
Who It’s For:
PALS is intended for healthcare providers who care for infants and children in emergency situations. This includes pediatricians, emergency medicine staff, critical care nurses, and paramedics.
What You’ll Learn:
PALS addresses the unique physiology and medical needs of pediatric patients. The course emphasizes:
● Pediatric Assessment: A systematic approach to evaluating a child in distress, including identifying early warning signs of respiratory failure and shock.
● Pediatric CPR and AED Use: Techniques tailored for small bodies, including age-appropriate compression depth, rate, and ventilation.
● Pediatric Pharmacology: Learn the correct dosage and administration routes for emergency medications in pediatric patients.
● Respiratory Emergencies: Recognition and treatment of conditions like asthma attacks, foreign body obstructions, or croup.
● Cardiovascular Emergencies: Identification and management of bradycardia, tachycardia, and other heart rhythm issues in children.
● Vascular Access: How to obtain IV and intraosseous (IO) access in small or unresponsive patients.
● Effective Team Response: Emphasis on communication and teamwork during pediatric emergencies.
● Post-Resuscitation Care: Best practices for stabilizing pediatric patients after cardiac arrest.
● Pediatric “Megacode” Scenarios: Practice simulations that reinforce the course material through realistic pediatric emergencies.
Why this course makes sense:
If you care for infants or children in high-acuity settings, whether in the emergency department, pediatric ICU, urgent care, transport, or acute inpatient care, having the ability to respond swiftly and skillfully during a pediatric crisis is critical.
Which Course Is Right for You?
● Start with BLS – it’s often the required foundation.
● Then decide between ACLS and PALS based on your specialty and the types of patients you care for.
● Many healthcare providers ultimately hold certifications in both ACLS and PALS.
Training at ACLS Academy: Where Life-Saving Skills Begin
No matter where you are in your healthcare journey, choosing the right life-saving certification is a big step, and where you train makes all the difference. At ACLS Academy, an American Heart Association (AHA) Aligned Training Center, you’ll find more than just high-quality instruction—you’ll find a team of real-world medical professionals who are passionate about preparing you for whatever comes through the door. Our instructors are more than educators; they're practicing nurses, paramedics, and advanced clinicians with deep experience in high-stakes environments. Their mission? To make sure you leave every class feeling capable, confident, and fully prepared to respond when every second counts. Whether you're renewing your certification, entering the field for the first time, or moving into a more advanced role, ACLS Academy is here to support your success, with heart.
With three convenient Massachusetts locations in Quincy, Bridgewater, and Newton Center, ACLS Academy offers flexible scheduling and multiple course formats to meet the needs of busy students and professionals alike.
Learn Your Way: In-Person or Blended Options
Whether you're a hands-on learner or prefer to tackle theory at your own pace, we’ve got you covered.
● Fully In-Person Courses deliver immersive, face-to-face training from start to finish.
● Blended Learning Options combine online modules with in-person, hands-on skills sessions guided by seasoned AHA-certified instructors.
At any stage of your medical career, mastering these skills equips you to act with confidence when it matters most. Explore our calendar of courses for the dates and locations of our next classes.
ACLS Academy offers high-quality courses taught by instructors who are practicing medical professionals, including ACLS, BLS, TNCC, ENPC, NRP, PALS, PALS Plus, PEARS, ACLS-EP, ASLS, Bloodborne Pathogen, HeartSaver CPR/AED, First Aid, and Instructor Courses.