Treating patients with cardiac arrest requires specialized knowledge and skills. These include:

• Basic Life Support (BLS)
• Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support (ACLS)
• Post-cardiac arrest care

These three stages of care may overlap with each other, and the team performs ACLS between BLS and post-cardiac arrest care. This section defines the adjuncts used during advanced cardiovascular life support. Trained healthcare providers in the pre-hospital and in-hospital setting perform ACLS. AHA categorizes cardiac arrest according to the situation in which it occurs. Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) pertains to the pre-hospital setting, while in-hospital cardiac arrest (IHCA) pertains to the in-hospital setting. The theory of care between the two settings have many similarities, but performing some treatments is only possible in-hospital only due to an abundance of resources available.