Article
Heart & Stroke provides an ACLS program. It does not accredit ACLS education in Canada.
A Heart & Stroke ACLS card is often treated as proof that the Foundation has decided which ACLS courses in Canada are legitimate. That is a different job from the one described on its own pages. Heart & Stroke builds and runs an ACLS program, prepares people to teach that program, and issues a Heart & Stroke certificate. It does not publish a process for reviewing another organization’s ACLS curriculum and approving it.
What an accrediting body does
An accrediting organization applies an external standard to education and decides whether that education meets the standard. In Canada, those decisions sit with other institutions.
- For physicians’ continuing education, credit systems belong to colleges such as the College of Family Physicians of Canada and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, or to continuing-education providers those colleges have accredited.
- For a licence to practise, the decision belongs to a provincial or territorial regulator.
- For a particular job, the decision belongs to the employer.
Owning a course is not the same act as any of those. A program provider can write lessons, test its own learners, and hand out its own card. That card documents completion of that provider’s course.
The role Heart & Stroke actually publishes
On its ACLS pages, the Foundation describes a course it operates. The program is called Heart & Stroke ACLS. The public summary says it is based on the 2020 guidelines and lists three options: ACLS Provider, ACLS Provider Renewal, and ACLS Experienced Provider. Provider and renewal are offered as a classroom course or as blended learning. The Foundation says the provider certificate is valid for two years.
The provider article names the entrance requirements for its own course: a current Heart & Stroke Basic Life Support provider certificate, and a precourse self-assessment passed at 70 percent. Those are admission rules for this program. They are not a national standard imposed on every ACLS course in the country.
Teaching is organized the same way. The ACLS Instructor Essentials page says the course prepares people to facilitate Heart & Stroke ACLS lessons. The published prerequisites are a scope of practice that includes advanced emergency care in Canada, a current Heart & Stroke BLS certificate, a current Heart & Stroke ACLS certificate, completion of the Heart & Stroke Core Instructor Course, and an instructor application. Someone who completes that path is authorized to teach the Heart & Stroke course. The page does not offer to assess a different ACLS curriculum.
A training site is still inside one program
Hospitals, colleges, and training companies host Heart & Stroke classes. The learner’s card is still a Heart & Stroke certificate when that is the program being taught. Approving a site or an instructor is quality control inside the Heart & Stroke program: the host has to deliver Heart & Stroke’s lessons under Heart & Stroke’s rules. It is not a review of some other organization’s ACLS course.
The American Heart Association’s 2018 international program manual describes a provider-to-provider relationship, and it is old enough that it should be read as a dated policy. It says Heart & Stroke works closely with the American Heart Association’s emergency cardiovascular care programs, and that American Heart Association training centers and instructors are not permitted to teach in Canada unless they are aligned with a Heart & Stroke training program. It also says the American Heart Association recognizes a Heart & Stroke provider card. Alignment with another course provider is still not a statute that puts Heart & Stroke in charge of every ACLS program offered in Canada.
“Recognized” is not “accredited”
Heart & Stroke’s own CPR page says its ACLS certification is valid for two years, recognized across Canada, and required for many clinical roles. “Recognized” in that sentence is the Foundation describing its own card. A reader still has to check the employer or regulator that actually asked for ACLS.
The Foundation’s ACLS page is more specific about physician credit, and the wording matters. It says Royal College Maintenance of Certification credit is available under Section 1, group learning, for resuscitation courses, as an unaccredited activity. The Royal College’s own framework lists resuscitation courses, and gives ACLS as an example, among group-learning activities. Accredited group learning is recorded at one credit an hour. Unaccredited group learning, including those resuscitation courses, is recorded at half a credit an hour. The framework does not name the Heart & Stroke Foundation as the body that accredits ACLS.
For family physicians, Heart & Stroke says its ACLS courses are eligible for Mainpro+ credits and tells members to sign in and enter the activity themselves, searching for “Advanced Life Support courses.” That is a claim inside the College of Family Physicians of Canada’s system. It is not Heart & Stroke granting accreditation to other programs. Fédération des médecins omnipraticiens du Québec members are told that credit depends on FMOQ rules.
A hospital or a university office can still ask a college, or a continuing-education provider that college has accredited, to accredit one session that the host is running. If that approval exists, it names that accreditor and it covers that session. It does not turn the Heart & Stroke Foundation into the organization that accredits ACLS education across Canada.
How to use this when you choose a course
Read the name of the organization that will issue the card. Then ask the employer or regulator that required ACLS which issuing organization it accepts. A Heart & Stroke certificate means the person completed the Heart & Stroke program under the rules published for that program. It is not a decision about any other ACLS program.
This article is about that distinction. It is not a rating of the Heart & Stroke course, and it is not a claim that another provider’s card will be accepted in its place. Acceptance is decided by the body that credentials you.
Sources for each statement are listed on the sources page. The program comparison is on the programs page.