What Changed

In its April 2026 monthly report, the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) announced a revised First Aid/CPR/AED Retraining course on the POST Learning Portal.

POST says the updated course meets the training mandate in California Penal Code section 13518(a) and awards eight hours of Continuing Professional Training (CPT) credit. To get that credit, an officer completes six online modules and passes an instructor-led skills demonstration.

The same report noted two POST regulations approved by the state Office of Administrative Law in late April, on peace officer background investigations and the basic course waiver process, both effective July 1, 2026. This article focuses on the first aid course.

What It Says

According to POST, the revised course adds:

  • A "new user-friendly interface"
  • "Firsthand accounts from the field"
  • A "pre-assessment for each module"
  • A "new skills demonstration completion-date entry field"

POST also notes that officers who already meet the two-year retraining requirement do not need to retake the course.

That is the full description in the report. The report does not list module topics, so we are not going to guess what the course does or does not cover on hemorrhage control, tourniquets or wound packing.

Why It Matters Operationally

POST sets the training floor for peace officers across California. Two design decisions in this refresher are worth attention from any agency, in any state.

The skills demonstration is required. Credit depends on passing an instructor-led, hands-on demonstration, not just clicking through modules. For any medical skill, that is the right line to draw. Nobody learns a hands-on skill from a video.

The completion-date field matters more than it looks. Tracking when an officer last physically demonstrated a skill turns a compliance record into a readiness record. A training manager can see who is overdue for hands-on practice, not just who finished the online portion.

The limits are also clear. An eight-hour block on a two-year cycle is a floor. A single skills check tells you an officer can perform a task once, calm and uninjured. It does not tell you whether that officer can do it in the dark, with one hand, on a partner who is screaming, in a cramped hallway while the threat may still be in the house.

ODM's Position

Position: A blended model, online knowledge plus an in-person skills check, is a reasonable foundation. It is not the finish line. Hands-on medical skills need repetition under realistic stress, integrated with tactical training, on a schedule tighter than every two years.

Evidence: POST itself chose to make a hands-on demonstration mandatory for credit rather than accept online completion alone. That choice reflects what every medic knows: skills live in the hands. National tactical medicine guidance points the same way. The Committee on Tactical Combat Casualty Care's guidelines, for example, call for reassessing prior tourniquet applications and exposing the wound to confirm one is needed, which is judgment that has to be practiced, not memorized. The Joint Trauma System's Damage Control Resuscitation guideline credits effective tourniquets with possibly saving more wounded service members in Iraq and Afghanistan "than any other single medical intervention." A skill with that much riding on it deserves more than a checkbox.

Strongest counterpoint: Online modules save time and money, standardize content across agencies statewide, and keep officers on patrol instead of in a classroom. Where staffing is tight, a leaner refresher that still requires a hands-on check may be the realistic option. That is a fair point. It is also why agencies should treat the state requirement as the minimum and add short, frequent, scenario-based reps on top of it.

What good looks like:

  • The state refresher, completed on time, with a real hands-on check.
  • Short quarterly drills: tourniquet, packing and a partner drag, done in duty gear.
  • At least one annual scenario that joins tactics and medicine, run in a space that looks like a real residence or business, not an open training bay.
  • Records that show the date of the last hands-on rep, not just the last completion.

What Your Agency Should Do Now

  • Confirm who is overdue on the two-year retraining requirement and schedule their skills demonstrations.
  • Use the online modules to buy time, then spend that time on hands-on practice.
  • Add medical tasks to existing firearms and tactics days instead of creating a separate class no one can attend.
  • Track the date of each officer's last hands-on medical rep and treat it like a qualification date.
  • Ask your instructors whether the skills demonstration is done in duty gear and under any stress at all. If not, change that locally.

Bottom Line

California POST kept a hands-on demonstration in its refresher, and that is the right call. The online part is the easy part. The skills check is the minimum. Capability comes from what agencies build on top of it.

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