Degree for Entry to Practice

Key messages as released by CSRT & NARTRB

Main message

Degree as Entry to Practice is required to ensure the Respiratory Therapy profession provides optimal patient care.

Key messages

To improve patient outcomes, respiratory care services must go beyond the application of technical skills. A degree will lead to a higher level of critical thinking, driven by evidence literacy to optimize patient care and minimize adverse events and prevent their re-occurrence.

To improve patient care, respiratory care services must involve taking charge of patient management and providing access to patient-centered care. Degree will lead to improved clinical reasoning, better oral and written communication skills to work effectively within inter-professional teams and increased intellectual curiosity.

To improve patient safety culture and willingness to report, respiratory care services must include clinicians who have a better appreciation of how their daily work affects the entire healthcare system, impacting length of stay, patient outcomes and patient safety.

To enhance the evaluation process of clinical events from a systems perspective (root cause analysis, human factors), a degree will prepare clinicians to propose meaningful, preventative solutions that address more than the current symptom and/or clinical situation.

To enhance clinical research and patient centered policy development capacity, degree will provide the knowledge and skills to be more professionally engaged, and to participate in research and policy development.

To enhance respiratory care services across the continuum of care, a degree will have a positive impact on the healthcare system (i.e. improving access, streamlining processes, innovation and reduction in adverse events).

In a health care system where change is a constant, degree will develop clinicians who know how to think critically and analytically, that can see the big picture, that continue learning, that will drive innovation, and that will have the ability to develop strategies for understanding and accepting changes.