Advanced Hazmat Life Support

Advanced Hazmat Life Support (AHLS) is a training program for medical personnel in the medical management of patients exposed to hazardous materials, including those exposed to chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear incidents. Training takes place internationally, with the majority of courses in the United States. The Instructor course provides a "train the trainer" program to help spread the course to more regions.

AHLS was developed in 1998 by the Arizona Emergency Medicine Research Center, a Center of Excellence, at The University of Arizona College of Medicine, and the American Academy of Clinical Toxicology. The AHLS Provider course has trained over 10,000 medical personnel from 50 countries.

AHLS Provider Course
A sixteen hour, two-day continuing education course intended for medical personnel. The course trains medical personnel to medically manage patients that have been exposed to hazardous materials including chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear incidents. Course topics include epidemiology of hazardous materials, toxic inhalants, pesticide poisoning, toxic terrorism, corrosives, hydrocarbons, halogenated hydrocarbons and toxic terrorism.

AHLS Instructor Course
A six hour continuing education course for those interested in becoming AHLS Instructors. The course is limited to those who are eligible to become verified Providers - physicians, paramedics (EMT-P), nurses, pharmacists, toxicologist.

Qualified participants become verified AHLS Providers and/or Instructor for a period of four years upon successful completion of the course. Re-verification can be done by taking an exam online to become re-verified for an additional four years.

Other courses
AHLS also offers two half-day courses, derived from the AHLS Provider course. The AHLS for Chemical Burns and Toxic Products of Combustion is a four hour course designed to fill partial requirements of the US Health Resources Service Administration (HRSA) Bioterrorism Hospital Preparedness Program (BHPP) for the care of burn victims of terrorism attacks. The AHLS for Toxic Terrorism: Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Agent Casualties Course is a four hour course that focuses on the essential needed for treating patients exposed to chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear incidents.