Application Receipt Dates Each Year:

February 1; June 1; October 1


The American Association for Respiratory Care Research Program was established in 1996 to sponsor research to determine relationships between clinical interventions by respiratory care practitioners and the outcomes of care. The primary purpose of the AARC Research Program is to sponsor research initiatives which can document the clinical and economic impact of respiratory care practitioners in the delivery of health care. Clinical trials and effectiveness research to determine how clinical interventions by respiratory care practitioners affect overall health of patients, including physiologic indicators and quality of life, will be considered for funding. For more information, please contact Bill Dubbs.

The AARC requires submission of a "Research Plan Abstract" form prior to the submission of a complete application. These abstracts will be used to plan the proposal review process. The abstract is not binding on the AARC or the applicant. The AARC will forward application packages to those submitting abstracts which propose a research project which supports the AARC's Research Agenda. The AARC will notify the applicant if a full application is not warranted.

Research Agenda
The American Association for Respiratory Care (AARC) has developed a restricted fund in support of these research priorities developed by the AARC Respiratory Care Research Council and approved by the AARC Board of Directors:

  1. To determine the outcomes of care provided by respiratory care practitioners with expanded roles and scope of practice in various settings (acute care, subacute care, outpatient care, long term care, and home care).
  2. To determine the outcomes of systems for delivering respiratory care services in various settings.

In pursuing this agenda, investigators may evaluate and compare the roles, effectiveness, and efficiency of respiratory care practitioners and other providers of respiratory care in various settings. Initiatives to explore both the clinical and economic impact of respiratory care practitioners in traditional and expanded roles in health care will be considered.

Research Fund Guidelines

  1. Project hypothesis includes measurement of the value of Respiratory Care Practitioner's (RCPs) in a health care setting.
  2. Research methodology is:
    1. prospective in design
    2. randomizes assignments into control and experimental groups
    3. sizes of control and experimental groups are sufficient to detect significant differences in primary outcome measure (power analysis)
  3. Researchers identified have:
    1. experience in performing similar medical studies
    2. published such a study in a specific journal
    3. identified assistance of a statistician
    4. involved RCPs where feasible
  4. Funding requests have:
    1. reasonable allocations of indirect staff costs
    2. limited percentage of expenses in capital or travel
    3. defined project deliverables at each stage of funding
  5. Because of the potential conflict of interest and to assure credibility of research results with external parties (third party payors, policy makers, etc.), the AARC will not fund research in which the principal investigator is employed by an organization which stands to realize financial gain from the outcome of the study.

Failure to meet the above criteria does not necessarily bar the proposal from acceptance provided that the researcher adequately addresses the issue to the satisfaction of the panel.

Priority Projects
The panel will give priority to research proposals in the following care settings:

Projects in acute care hospitals will be considered only if sufficiently different than grants approved to date.

Research Plan Abstract
Individuals who intend to apply for funding are encouraged to first submit a completed "Research Plan Abstract". Print out the abstract form and mail it to:

AARC Research Program
c/o AARC Executive Office
Attn: Sheri Phillips
11030 Ables Lane
Dallas, Texas 75229
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