Cardiac nursing — often called cardiac-vascular nursing to include peripheral and cerebrovascular disease — covers the care of patients with heart and vascular conditions. It is one of the largest fields in hospital nursing because heart disease is the leading cause of death in the country and because cardiac care is organized into a chain of settings that a patient moves through.
The settings
Telemetry and cardiac step-down. The volume of the specialty. Continuous rhythm monitoring, chest pain rule-outs, arrhythmias, heart failure exacerbations, and post-procedure observation. See progressive care nursing.
Coronary and cardiovascular intensive care. Infarction with complications, cardiogenic shock, post-operative open-heart recovery, mechanical circulatory support, and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. See critical care nursing.
The catheterization laboratory. Diagnostic angiography, percutaneous coronary intervention, and increasingly structural procedures such as valve replacement and closure devices. Nursing here is procedural: sedation, haemodynamic monitoring, contrast and anticoagulation management, sheath removal, and access site complications. On-call for emergency infarction activation is standard, and the response time is measured.
The electrophysiology laboratory. Ablations, and implantation of pacemakers and defibrillators.
Cardiothoracic surgery, in the operating room and in recovery. See perioperative nursing.
Heart failure clinics and programmes. Largely outpatient, built on titration, weight and symptom monitoring, and education, with readmission as the measured outcome.
Cardiac rehabilitation. Structured exercise, risk-factor modification, and secondary prevention after an event.
The entry skill
Rhythm interpretation is what separates cardiac nursing from general medical nursing. A cardiac nurse reads their own telemetry rather than waiting for a technician's call, recognizes the rhythm that precedes an arrest rather than the arrest, and knows which changes need a physician now and which need one at eight in the morning.
Everything else builds on it: the pharmacology of antiarrhythmics, anticoagulants, and vasoactive drips; twelve-lead interpretation and infarction localization; haemodynamics; and device function for pacemakers and defibrillators.
Certification
CV-BC, from the American Nurses Credentialing Center, is the general cardiac-vascular nursing credential. It requires an active registered nurse licence, two years of full-time practice, 2,000 hours of cardiac-vascular clinical practice within the last three years, and 30 hours of continuing education in the specialty. It is valid for five years.
For nurses in higher-acuity settings, the critical care and progressive care credentials from the certification arm of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses are the usual choice, with subspecialty credentials in cardiac medicine and cardiac surgery that sit on top of them.
Procedural areas add their own layers. Advanced cardiac life support is a condition of employment across the specialty, and catheterization and electrophysiology laboratories generally require radiation safety training and moderate sedation competency documented separately.
Where the pressure is
Two measured outcomes shape the specialty's daily work more than any others.
The first is time to treatment in acute infarction, counted from arrival to opening the artery. It drives staffing of catheterization laboratories, on-call structures, and the emergency department's relationship with them. See emergency nursing.
The second is heart failure readmission, which carries a payment penalty for hospitals. That single fact has produced most of the specialty's outpatient nursing roles — heart failure clinic nurses, transitional care nurses, and telephone follow-up programmes exist largely because a readmission within thirty days costs the hospital money. See case management nursing.
Related
- Progressive care nursing
- Critical care nursing
- Perioperative nursing
- Rehabilitation nursing
- Nursing specialties
Sources
- Cardiac-Vascular Nursing Certification — American Nurses Credentialing Center, on the CV-BC credential, eligibility, and five-year term. Accessed September 9, 2026.
- Get Certified — AACN Certification Corporation, on the cardiac medicine and cardiac surgery subspecialty credentials. Accessed September 9, 2026.
- CCRN (Adult) Certification — AACN Certification Corporation, on settings including cardiac care units. Accessed September 9, 2026.