Article posted on April 2, 2025
High performance CPR instructor sessions continue throughout province
The AHS EMS Medical First Response (MFR) Program continues to roll out high performance CPR train-the-trainer sessions across the province.
Most recently, the full-day instructor sessions were held in Medicine Hat and St. Albert, resulting in an additional nine agencies receiving the training.
“It is great to see the enthusiasm and interest that participants are bringing to training events and bringing back to their home departments,” said Marissa Crane, senior staff development officer for the MFR program.
AHS EMS adopted high performance CPR training as a standard for all frontline EMS practitioners as a part of annual training as of the 2023/24 Training Cycle. Going forward, all practitioners will receive refresher training on high performance CPR at their annual training day.
To date, 70 agencies and organizations outside of AHS EMS have received high performance CPR instructor training through the MFR program. The content is tailored for each group of participants, recognizing the unique assortment of training and experience in the room.
“Our sessions have been mixture of all levels of MFR responders including standard first aid through to advanced care paramedics and this dynamic creates such a unique learning environment for all participants,” said Crane. “The tailoring of content is something we are encouraging our participants to take back to their departments as well, for example our MFR agencies that have mechanical CPR devices are encouraged to spend some time incorporating the concepts of high performance CPR into their device application.”
Dr. Wes Orr, MFR medical director attended the Taber session and was able to answer participant questions and take part in some of the hands-on portions of the training.
“The attendance engagement and enthusiasm from so many different services in southern Alberta was amazing. Seeing all the various departments actively engaged in improving their individual skills to help care for people in their communities was inspiring,” said Orr of the November 2024 session held in Taber.
High performance CPR originated in Seattle, Washington at the fire department level when Captain Craig Aman led its development after recording metrics such as compression rate, depth and chest recoil. Through this collection of data, he realized that there were too many pauses by members when performing CPR and sought to develop a training program that minimized time off the chest.
The training focuses on refining the delivery of CPR through optimizing existing skills. There are no formal certifications for this course, but many services throughout the world have begun to blend it into their standard teachings. Red Cross, St. John’s Ambulance and Heart and Stroke have not yet incorporated high performance CPR into their programming, so standard CPR certification is still required even for those who take this training.
So far, approximately 80 MFR agencies have been provided the training. If your department is interested in hosting or attending, please email mfr@ahs.ca.
Last Updated: Wednesday, April 02, 2025