Goals
The goals of the Online Bachelor of Science in Respiratory Care Degree Advancement Program are to do the following:
- Provide a high-quality, flexible educational program for emerging or experienced professionals to enhance their academic credentials.
- Foster creative thinking and problem-solving ability among students that translates clearly to the bedside, improving patient outcomes.
- Enhance or provide new knowledge and skills that allow the student to pursue his/her own professional and career goals.
- Communicate the importance of interprofessional collaborative practice and patient- and family-centered care in professional practice.
- Provide student mentoring and professional role-modeling to establish a network of like-minded respiratory therapists who, upon graduation, will do the following:
- Actively seek to advance the goals of the profession of respiratory care.
- Provide care that is evidence-based, patient-centered, timely, efficient and equitable.
- Demonstrate the ethical attributes and behaviors expected of a health care professional.
- Work effectively as members of clinical teams with the goal of providing a safer, patient-centered health care system.
- Engage in critical analysis of their own practice experience, medical literature and other information resources for the purpose of self-improvement.
- Demonstrate an awareness of and responsiveness to the larger system of health care.
Competencies
- Communication: Students will deliver a consultative presentation that reflects the knowledge gained through courses in this program.
- Problem Solving and Critical Thinking: Students will demonstrate the ability to formulate a clinical question, search the medical literature and assess the collected literature for quality, relevance and limitations.
- Inter-professional and Patient-Centered Practice: Students will complete the required UAMS Interprofessional Education milestone for degree advancement students and demonstrate the ability to educate patients, their families and health care professionals.
- Ethical Decision Making and Leadership: Students will demonstrate the ability to lead a group of professionals in an ethical manner.
The faculty has identified the educational competencies necessary to achieve the program goal by an analysis of the Commission on Accreditation for Respiratory Care expectations for the practice of entry-level respiratory care practitioners and through an ongoing dialogue with the program’s Advisory Committee members. These competencies are reviewed within the curriculum at least once each year to ensure the appropriate content is taught and that students are evaluated at an appropriate level to be able to practice proficiently upon graduation.
Core Competencies
Respiratory therapists are members of a team of health care professionals working in a wide variety of clinical settings to evaluate, treat and manage patients of all ages with respiratory illnesses and other cardiopulmonary disorders.
As team members, respiratory therapists should exemplify the ethical and professional standards expected of all health care professionals.
Respiratory therapists provide a broad range of patient care, including clinical decision-making and patient education. The respiratory care scope of practice includes the following basic or core competencies:
- Acquire and evaluate clinical data;
- Assess the cardiopulmonary status of patients;
- Evaluate data to assess the appropriateness of prescribed respiratory care;
- Establish therapeutic goals for patients with cardiopulmonary disease;
- Participate in the development and modification of respiratory care plans;
- Complete the case management of patients with cardiopulmonary and related diseases;
- Initiate prescribed respiratory care treatments, manage life support activities, evaluate and monitor patient responses to such therapy and modify the prescribed therapy to achieve the desired therapeutic objectives;
- Initiate and conduct prescribed pulmonary rehabilitation;
- Provide patient, family and community education;
- Promote cardiopulmonary wellness, disease prevention and disease management;
- Promote evidence-based practice by using established clinical practice guidelines and by evaluating published research for its relevance to patient care;
- Function within inter-professional teams and communicate effectively with diverse populations;
- Apply problem-solving strategies in the patient care setting;
- Apply ethical decision-making and professional responsibility.
Students’ opportunities to meet these basic or core competencies occur throughout the program and beyond. Students will demonstrate professional competencies through the following direct and indirect means (not a complete list):
- Group presentations
- Peer reviews
- Student reflections
- Clinical simulations
- Interprofessional education activities
- Course assessments.
The attainment of these competencies is evaluated throughout the respiratory care program by a large variety of process and end-product assessments. These include the objective unit and final course examinations consisting of multiple-choice, true-false and short answer questions; original written and oral presentations; simulations; student learning contracts; and completion of assessments designed to measure affective or behavioral characteristics of professionals, to name a few.