Keep Your CPR Certificates Up To Date With CPR Recertification

There are many different CPR and first aid courses out there, but the majority of them are given for a period of 2 years. After that, CPR re-certification will be required to keep the license.

Here are several reasons why you’d really want to do this.

Keeping your CPR skills sharp.

It is always good to plan in advance and sign up for CPR re-certification classes at least six months before your current license expires. Even if you don’t need the certification for work, it is still crucial to maintain this skill in top notch condition so that you don’t panic or freeze should anything happen.

That and the additional fact that CPR, while not a complex practice to learn, can be physically taxing. Giving chest compressions to an unconscious person, keeping the compressions strong and delivering them at the right intervals for more than a few minutes will tire even a trained professional. You need to develop strength and muscle memory around the practice to be able to do it well. Practicing every two years is the very bare minimum if you want to keep it sharp.

A fast and precise response to an emergency is the main goal of those classes.

Follow and learn more advanced CPR techniques

Additionally, medicine as a practice, is based on science and as such never stands in one place. Procedures are improved and developed all the time. This means you will likely not only get a new licence when you get re-certified, but also learn a few new valuable things about the procedure.

For example, did you know that mouth to mouth resuscitation is no longer considered not only necessary but even simply more efficient. This happened in three stages.

First it was the only way of delivering CPR. Then it was accepted that CPR without mouth to mouth is almost as good. Now we know there is no evidence to support mouth to mouth resuscitation at all, since the procedure works just as well without it. Nowadays chest compressions are widely accepted as the more efficient method. We don’t know what will be discovered next; organizations like the National CPR foundation are continuously examining common practices and their results to develop more efficient CPR and first aid techniques.

Finally, re-certification can now be done at least partially online. Online CPR renewal, while slightly less efficient than full CPR recertification, is still much better than no CPR re-certification at all.

We urge everyone to get your licence renewed on a regular basis so that you have a better chance to save a life in an emergency.

Register for CPR or First Aid Training

Register today for a CPR or First Aid training course at one of our locations across Ontario! Check out our facilities and book your spot now.
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Where to go or not go for CPR Recertification?

Keeping your CPR certification valid is very important for several good reasons.

One is that you are legally bound to have a valid CPR certificate to perform cardiovascular resuscitation in Canada.

If you find yourself in a situation where you perform this life saving technique without a valid license, you may be facing legal action. This chance becomes higher still if there is suspicion that your actions caused harm or contributed to the emergency rather than help resolve it.

The second reason is that CPR recertification is often, and luckily, the only time when most people get to practice it and make sure they still remember how it’s done.

Skills such as first aid and CPR get eroded over time, and if you lose the confidence that you’re equipped to do it well, you’re setting yourself up for failure. And failure in this type of scenario means the death of a friend or family member, which is not something any of us can afford to allow.

Choosing Your CPR Recertification School

Luckily, there are many locations and options to get your CPR recertification done in Ontario.

Coast to Coast First Aid operates in multiple locations across the GTA, with centres for CPR recertification in Toronto, Red Cross approved CPR training in Richmond Hill and North York, as well as other options such as standard or pediatric First Aid certification online.

One of the things to remember when you choose a place for your CPR recertification, is to look for their credentials. There are requirements for legally teaching this course, but some CPR and FIrst Aid schools are still far better than others.

Ask about their courses – are they approved by the Canadian Red Cross? This is not just a label. To get approved by the Red Cross, the school’s training needs to be of the highest level.

The best CPR recertification instructors are also Red Cross veterans that have actual hands-on experience in saving human lives. Those veterans know the technique down to the smallest details and can provide the highest level of training.

Look for a First Aid school that hires mostly Red Cross instructors and/or ex medical field professionals. This will serve as a guarantee that once you got your training or recertification, you will truly be prepared.

We hope this will help you choose the right place. If you are looking for a First Aid or CPR course, Coast to Coast First Aid and it’s hi-tech teaching facilities are here for you.

Register for CPR or First Aid Training

Register today for a CPR or First Aid training course at one of our locations across Ontario! Check out our facilities and book your spot now.
Register Now

CPR Recertification – An Overview

This blog is here to guide you through the process of getting your CPR recertification, as well as alleviate any doubts as to why you might need it.

To lay the groundwork for this, here are a few reasons why anyone already certified should still get re-certified every three years, or more frequently if you are a medical practitioner.

  1. Skill Retention Concerns

Once you’d gone through your initial training, you received all the knowledge and skill necessary to perform this lifesaving technique on another person. As the years go by, however, can you be absolutely sure that all the knowledge and skills you attained during that first course are still with you? Moreover, are you willing to find it out in a life-threatening situation? Just as is the case with any acquired skill, a lack of practice dulls the reflexes and erodes memory. Refreshing it is as vital as learning it in the first place.

  1. New Practices and Rules

The medical field, just as everything else in our lives, does not stand still. Better, more efficient and innovative methods are developed rapidly. The CPR and first aid courses you took three years ago taught the best practices known at the time. Learning newer methods now will increase your efficiency at dealing with the emergency.

  1. Laws and Liabilities

This may be a source of some frustration, but the fact is that the law treats a person who knows CPR yet doesn’t have a valid certificate, as if they weren’t trained at all. There is much damage that can result in someone applying CPR when they are untrained, and this is a precaution set in place to prevent it. Of course, if there is no other choice, an untrained (or not recertified) individual may decide to step in and assist, but the legal implications may be bad.

How to get CPR Recertified?

The good news is that recertification is even faster than initial first aid courses or first time cpr courses you took. The process of CPR recertification is pretty simple – you get to take a quick online refresher course for the knowledge set needed to perform CPR, and then proceed to a quick skill test in one of our many CPR training facilities conveniently located all around the Greater Toronto Area.

And finally, don’t look at this as an obstacle, but an opportunity.

An opportunity to enhance your skills, learn new ones and ultimately be better equipped to help save someone’s life.