AHA Vs Red Cross CPR
The AHA (American Heart Association) and the Red Cross (completely known as the American Red Cross or ARC) are two institutions that offer medical trainings to laypersons and medical professionals about certain basic life support procedures like the CPR. To this regard, many come to question where to go and which firm offers the most attractive certifications, most especially for those seeking to be employed.
It is said that Red Cross grasps its theory for their medical trainings from AHA itself. Thus, AHA is the institute that really does the leg work for all the necessary researches while Red Cross simply borrows the theory from them. Both seem to rely on the guidelines set by AHA last 2005. In this connection, AHA trainings were deemed to be more difficult and are inclined for those who already have basic and professional medical background. They are usually the ones who conduct trainings at accredited hospitals nonetheless.
Not to degrade the quality of superb CPR training at Red Cross, but they seem to give a much easier approach to CPR training. In the evaluation process, they only require a lesser passing percentage of about 80% per exam compared to AHA’s 84-85%. Thus, many would recommend Red Cross’ CPR training to those who don’t have much medical background yet. However, it has been noticed that Red Cross’ CPR trainings are a little more expansive than AHA’s. Their training timelines are generally longer than the other.
With regard to the actual course, AHA’s CPR training is split into three sub courses:
1. Basic Life Support (BLS) which is intended for medical professionals
2. Heartsaver AED
3. Heartsaver CPR
Red Cross also splits their training into three:
1. Professional Rescuer’s CPR, also known as CPR Pro
2. Schools and the Community’s CPR
3. Workplace CPR
One of the immediate differences that you’ll come across between the two is the length of time being certified. AHA offers a two-year certification program for all their trainings first aid, AED and all three courses in CPR while Red Cross only offers a year’s worth of certification for their last two CPR courses. Only the Professional Rescuer’s CPR is worth 2 years. On top of that, Red Cross’ CPR Pro is said to be not that recognized by medical institutions compared to AHA’s BLS training. This is one of the reasons why most health care professionals would seek out for an AHA CPR certification over Red Cross.
Nevertheless, both AHA and Red Cross are nationally recognized to lead in rendering topnotch basic medical training for either local or national degrees.
1. AHA is a said to be a more difficult CPR training than Red Cross’
2. AHA offers 2 year certification for all their CPR courses while Red Cross offers only one year certification for the courses ‘“ CPR for the Workplace, Schools and the Community except for CPR Pro that is worth 2 years.