Critical Care Education’s EKG Technician Certificate Program provides the skills needed to work as an EKG Technician, Monitor Technician, or a Telemetry Technician. EKG interpretation skills are critical in these health care career fields and properly trained and certified technicians are growing in demand. Our EKG Technician Program offers an in-depth, online training course at your pace that best prepares graduates to properly perform the duties required in the healthcare industry. Our online program covers the anatomy and physiology of the heart, medical disease processes and terminology, electrocardiography, and echocardiography.
Our EKG Technician program will prepare you for a career in:
An EKG or Electrocardiograph is a medical test that records the heart’s electrical impulses. Electrocardiography (ECG/EKG) provides valuable information to the medical team about the electrical activity in the heart. The EKG is a highly specialized and technical tool for assessing cardiac function and diagnosing cardiac disease. To perform this task, a technician fastens electrodes to a patient to be read by the EKG machine and the information or reading that is obtained and printed out is given to the medical team to interpret.
ECG/EKG Certified Technicians, also known as Electrocardiograph technicians or Cardiovascular technicians, perform EKGs readings, Holter Monitoring, Lead Placement and Stress Tests (usually on a treadmill) in a clinic setting. EKG Technicians do not typically work in a hospital but work in office or clinic in what is known as outpatient procedures.
Telemetry monitoring technicians are allied health professionals who monitor heart rhythms using electrocardiographic (ECG) equipment. Telemetry is an electronic system designed to monitor a patient's heart activity. The heart is an electrical system and the monitors pick up cardiac activity, displaying it in electrical patterns on a computer screen for medical staff to see. Different heart rhythms indicate problems or diseases of the heart and require different treatment. Telemetry technicians are trained to recognize heart rhythms.
Monitor technicians, also referred to as cardiac monitor technicians, work in hospitals and other medical care centers that provide treatment relating to heart health. Most of their work involves using machines and other medical technology to observe the heart beats and electrocardiograms (EKG) of patients in intensive care units, or ICUs and to keep track of patients' heart performance checking for any abnormalities, such as irregular heartbeats, arrhythmias, and cardiac arrest. Monitor technicians typically do not provide treatment of any kind, but they do have to interpret test results and must report them to a nurse or physician.
Critical Care Education’s EKG Technician certification is Nationally and California state approved by Cardiovascular Credential International and the Bureau of Registered Nursing. Our program is self-paced online and will prepare students for cardiac monitoring including Holter, 12 Lead EKG, and Stress Testing. Successful completion of this course will qualify the student to sit for and take the Certified Cardiographic Technician (CCT) exam by Cardiovascular Credential International.
Key terminology relating to the heart and its basic anatomy and physiology of the Cardiovascular System
An understanding of how an EKG uses electrical conduction to get readings on the function of the heart—concepts of cardiac polarization, depolarization, and repolarization
Correlate the actions of the heart represented by the p wave, PR interval, QRS complex, and T-wave
Calculating a heart rate from an EKG rhythm strip
EKG waveform analysis which includes interpreting cardiac of the following rhythms: sinus rhythms, atrial rhythms, ventricular rhythms, junctional rhythms, Heart Blocks, and interpreting artificial pacemaker rhythms
Recognize EKG findings of Myocardial Infarction and ischemia
Proper EKG lead placement and how to perform a 12 lead EKG
Performing stress testing
Holter Monitoring lead placement, procedure, and analysis
Understanding the interventions intended to correct the effects of insufficient tissue perfusion associated with dysrhythmia
Go to our new online platform below to learn more about Critical Care Education's EKG Technician Program
Our self-paced program is designed for you in mind
The course is self-paced and your will have 6-months to complete it
This course is done entirely online and requires internet access
Our nine week program is completely online with live lectures done via zoom and coursework completed online in our LMS system. The student will have weekly assignments and quizzes and will meet once a week for a 1-2 hour lecture. The lectures are recorded so that the student can see them again if needed and are optional if a student cannot attend all of them. Please visit our EKG Technician Program website for class start dates.
9 Weeks
This course is done entirely online and requires internet access
Upon completion of this program, students wishing to become Nationally Certified will be eligible to test for the two National certifications for EKG Techncian.
Certified Cardiographic Technician (CCT) from CCI
Certified EKG Technician (CET) from NHA
The cost of the program does not cover the cost of the national exam and upon completion the student will be issued the required documentation to apply for the national exam.
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE NATIONAL CERTIFICATIONS
Majority of states have no license, certification, special test or examination required after you complete your EKG Technician course to apply for the position of EKG Technician, Monitor Technician, or Telemetry Technician. However, many employers prefer to hire Technicians with the a national certification.
Prerequisites:
Graduation from high school or equivalent to apply for these positions
Course Requirements
This course is completely online and requires access to the internet. The course can be taken on either a PC or Mac. Depending on the device the course can work on a phone or tablet but is not guaranteed to work on all devices. It is highly recommended you have access to a PC or MAC if the course does not work on your device.
