Here at National Health Care Provider Solutions (NHCPS), we’ve been hard at work developing the latest tools and interactive experiences to ensure we can fulfill our mission. Put simply, our mission is to empower others to save lives. We live by this motto by helping people gain the life-saving skills of CPR, AED, BLS, ACLS, PALS, and First Aid, and one way we continue to strive towards this mission is through the continuous and never-ending improvements to our online certification courses, sites and services.

Our site may look different than it did two years ago when you initially registered for one of our certification courses and last accessed our accounts. All changes were made looking toward improvement.

We want to make the navigation of our site and courses as easy as possible for you, so we’ve created this guide to help you stay up to date on our new updates, offerings, and more!

We’re Updating and Always Improving

In the last two years, our empowerment and development team has been hard at work building out and improving our services.

First, we have reaffirmed our commitment to following the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR) 2015-2020 guidelines to ensure our certification and course content meets the highest standards. Second, we’re taking your comments, concerns, advice, and questions into consideration. We treat every inquiry with care, and we hope you’ve seen that through our 24/7 customer service, provided through our Empowerment Team, who is always available for our customers.

Suggestions submitted through emails, reviews, and phone calls are treated with care and looked into without every sacrificing any detail, so adjustments can be made immediately. We are always looking for areas of improvement, and this has been a vital function and help to us!

We also looked into other certification courses that health care providers requested most. In fact, we have developed our own Bloodborne Pathogens certification course based on the ILCOR 2010-2015 guidelines and updates, as well as evidence-based practices regarding the treatment, key considerations, and disposal practices for preventing the spread of bloodborne pathogens. We’ll discuss that new course in further detail below.

What’s Changed Since the Last Time You Certified

tilt head back deliver 2 breaths That’s a loaded question. In short, we’ve completed changed how we interact with you and other students. We have created new resources to make instruction easier and accessible, and at the same time, we have streamlined the course content. So, you can get back to work saving lives, providing the best care possible, and making a difference in the world.

From improvements to our training videos and skills videos, where we filmed our Founder, Karl “Fritz’ Disque, and our Medical Educator, Lauren Diffendarfer, performing the vital skills of CPR, AED, and advanced life support, to creating new course content, we have been busy making changes here. One thing we are excited to bring to the forefront of this discussion is the introduction of Megacodes for ACLS on our site.

What Are ACLS Megacodes

Megacodes are an excellent resource where medical professionals and students can come and practice free Megacodes as many times as needed. There are a simulation-like review and test to make sure you have the skills necessary to save a life.

Megacodes are designed based on the most prevalent situations someone might encounter in a life-saving situation. These include providing ACLS care with attention to key issues, including:

V-Tach (Ventricular Tachycardia)
Bradycardia
V-Fib (Ventricular Fibrillation
SVT (Supraventricular Tachycardia)
Stroke
PEA (Pulseless Electrical Activity)
STEMI (ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction)

Each simulation is short, three minutes, reflecting the need to recognize the signs of life-threatening symptoms and perform the best course of action to increase survival. These simulations can help you identify your strengths and weaknesses in performing ACLS.

The Creation of Online Course Skills Videos

skills video medical educator Lauren When we think of the best way to learn, we imagine an instructor guiding us through the steps to complete a task or skill. Unfortunately, the web makes anyone around the globe capable of getting the certifications to become a Life Saver, and no, we’re not talking about the candy. We wanted to put the classroom in front of you, the students to whom we owe countless lives saved. Plus, we’ve taken a thorough-approach, developing instructional videos for every certification course available.

In addition to helping students learn through reading and test-taking, skills’ videos increase engagement and make students feel like the course is happening right in front of their eyes. We also took the capability of using Augmented Reality on the road to help people interact even more, and while this isn’t yet available on our site, it is on our radar for future improvements.

We found that interacting with you has driven registration even higher than expected, and we think it has roots in some the key benefits of an interactive learning environment. Check out these key benefits our skills’ videos offer:

Founder-led instruction, and since our founder happens to be both a practicing anesthesiologist and our medical educator, his skills are an invaluable resource.
Instructional videos demonstrate the subtle and not-so-subtle differences in performing CPR and using an AED on adults, infants and children, as well as unique considerations for care of pregnant women and more.
Videos to teach the most complex topics, including airway management and EKG interpretation.
On-demand availability in the course portal and on our YouTube channel. In fact, we have a great tip that has helped us in refreshing our memories on the go; save the videos to your YouTube library, and feel free to watch anytime when you want a quick review.

The Creation of New, Certification For-Life Courses

ACLS Certification for life is a course we’ve created to serve those who do not have time to constantly update certifications and complete coursework. Once people complete the course, they are certified by an accredited entity, NHCPS, for the rest of their lives. This offers a few unique benefits over traditional course timelines, such as:

Immediate reduction in the amount of time and resources used to maintain certification.
Ability to keep up with the latest information through our interactive resources, even after completing a course.

However, certain employers may require the completion of ACLS and life-savings skills’ courses more often than once per lifetime, so we recommend checking with your employer for all requirements. If you do need to complete a course a second time, several years down-the-line, we make it easier than ever before.

Bloodborne Pathogens Certification Course

Our new Bloodborne Pathogens (BBP) course is based on ILCOR 2015-2020 guidelines and evidence-based best practices. It’s designed for anyone who may come into contact with blood or bodily fluids, especially health care professionals. It provides a complete understanding of the risks of bloodborne pathogens, how they’re spread, the role of personal protective equipment, and how to respond when potential exposure occurs.

Some of the benefits of this new course may include:

Increased responsibility in caring for injured individuals and the risk of coming into contact with bodily fluids.
Fulfillment of BBP certification requirements for working in laboratory environments or direct care of others.
Understanding of the prevention tips for eliminating the spread of bloodborne pathogens and ensuring the safety of yourself, your family, your coworkers and total strangers.

Online Handbook Pages for Each Course

We’ve also created easy-to-view online handbook pages for each course. If you use a PDF-viewer on your mobile device, they are an easy, downloaded resource for use in any environment. In addition, the key characteristics of these new handbook pages include:

Interactive and available for you chapter-by-chapter
Optimized for mobile devices and tablets
Completed with robust photos, algorithms and tables to provide you with meaningful information at a glance

“Under the Hood” Improvements

In terms of site improvements to the backend of our sites—the things you don’t see but definitely enjoy—our development team has crafted the best version of our site yet! From handbooks that are available for you to interact with page-by-page, while taking easy online courses, to site speed, we’re committed to making sure you can finish your course as quickly as possible. Plus, we want to make sure you have access to your certification cards immediately.

We’ve made numerous improvements “under the hood” to improve your experience on our sites. This means you can get certified faster and easier. In our field, time lost can turn an accident into a tragedy. Even though you may be working from the comfort of your special spot at home, we want you to complete the courses and get your certifications as fast as possible. When you can complete coursework faster without sacrificing quality of instruction, we believe you have to the potential to save more lives. In fact, the next change was designed to increase the ease-of-access of our sites from any device.

We’ve Optimized Our Sites For an Immersive, Mobile Experience

One of the biggest changes in our sites was the redesign of our web-structure to optimize their use on mobile devices. We know that health care professionals, including you, are constantly working from their smart devices, so we’ve created an experience to navigate course modules and use our new resources without the hassle of logging into a computer. Our sites have been updated with a new mobile experience so that every page is easy to read and navigate on your mobile device. Our automated snap screens make sure the text is just the right size, regardless of whether a smartphone, tablet or 2-in-1 PC is being used.

What’s Coming in 2019 for NHCPS

While we are constantly working to improve your experience and provide the most relevant and fact-based information, we know that our success depends on the continual feedback from you. We can create Megacodes, online training videos and pretests to gauge your skills, but we want to hear from you.

Do you have a suggestion or thought that could help us certify more Life Savers, or do you want to be a driving force in the world? Share our site with your friends, coworkers, and family. By becoming a larger network of people certified to provide the best care possible, we can be a positive light in all reaches of the globe.

To learn more about us, check out the “Who is NHCPS?” video!