2025 Guidelines American Heart Association News

2025 Guidelines American Heart Association News

This year marks an important milestone as we release the official 2025 American Heart

Association Guidelines for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) and Emergency Cardiovascular Care (ECC). For decades, the AHA has led the development of these evidence-based guidelines, which are updated and translated into actionable recommendations and form the foundation of all AHA first aid, CPR, and ECC courses globally.

The AHA is the first and only US training organization directly involved in the creation of adult resuscitation science and education, leading the development of the official resuscitation guidelines used by all other US training providers. AHA also partners with the American Academy of Pediatrics to jointly create the pediatric and neonatal resuscitation guidelines.

The recommendations in the Guidelines reflect alignment with the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation consensus on science and evidence evaluation. AHA also conducts our own evidence evaluations and develops resuscitation care guidelines.

To help you start to plan accordingly, we are providing the following updates about the release of the 2025 AHA Guidelines for CPR and ECC and the course materials.

• The Guidelines are currently scheduled to be released October 22, 2025. AHA is expected to simultaneously launch new, updated courses and materials for Resuscitation Quality Improvement (RQI) and HeartCode® programs, healthcare products in the core disciplines of Basic Life Support (BLS), Advanced

Cardiovascular Life Support (ACLS), and Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) and for the Heartsaver® First Aid CPR AED product line on October 22. For a list of new, updated courses and materials that are expected to launch on October 22, please visit the 2025 Guidelines Communications webpage (Atlas log-in required).

• In addition, we are pleased to share that ACLS EP and PEARS courses will be updated to reflect the latest science in the Guidelines and released at a future date.
• Instructor Essentials courses in the core disciplines of Heartsaver, BLS, ACLS, and PALS are expected to be released in early 2026.
• The following materials will be available October 22 following the release of the Guidelines:
• 2025 AHA Guidelines for CPR & ECC Reprint
• 2025 AHA Guidelines for CPR & ECC Digital Reprint
• Highlights of the 2025 AHA Guidelines for CPR & ECC (multiple languages)
• BLS, ACLS, PALS, Pediatric Emergency Assessment, Recognition, and Stabilization (PEARS®), and Heartsaver Instructor Updates (required eLearning for Instructors)
• 2025 AHA Guidelines Science In-Service (this is an eLearning course for healthcare professionals who are not AHA Instructors)

Transition Timeline and Instructor Updates

Once the Guidelines are released, there will be a 90-day transition timeline during which AHA Instructors will need to take an Instructor Update course for each discipline they teach. Beginning at 12:00 a.m. CT March 1, 2026, Instructors need to use the new, updated course materials to teach the updated courses. We will communicate additional details about the transition timeline for all eProducts in the next 30 days. For information about the timeline and Instructor Updates, please visit the 2025 Guidelines Communications webpage (Atlas log-in required).

Future email communications about the Guidelines

Throughout 2025, you can expect to receive periodic emails from AHA that contain important, additional information about the Guidelines release. Please stay tuned for additional updates in the future.

With over 400,000 AHA Instructors across more than 3,500 AHA Training Centers in 92 countries, we’re the world’s largest and most experienced provider of resuscitation training. Our mission to save lives through first aid, CPR, and ECC training is not possible without the important work you do each day. We thank you for your dedication, expertise, and passion.  

American Heart Association