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March is the Month for Sleep and Pulmonary Rehab
March 1, 2012
This month is the perfect time to turn your attention to sleep and pulmonary
rehabilitation, as the nation gets ready to mark National Sleep Awareness
Week ™ March 5–11, and Pulmonary Rehabilitation Week March 11–17.
The AARC supports members working in both of these specialty areas in
the profession—
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Our Sleep Section
provides members with the opportunity to network with sleep specialists
across the country through a dedicated discussion list on AARConnect.
Members also receive quarterly Bulletins with informative articles
written by and for the membership and a monthly newsletter with a
roundup of the latest studies in the literature.
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Membership in our Continuing
Care & Rehabilitation Section offers similar benefits
for those working in pulmonary rehabilitation programs or interesting
in learning more about the area. The section also works closely with
AARC government affairs staff on critical reimbursement issues facing
pulmonary rehab programs today. (A new Pulmonary
Rehabilitation Toolkit aimed at helping programs accurately
report their charges to Medicare will be out this spring.)
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A specialty exam for sleep professionals is now available from the
NBRC. Designed specifically for respiratory therapists with an NBRC
respiratory care credential and experience or education in the field
of sleep, the Sleep
Disorders Specialty Examination gives you the opportunity
to demonstrate your acquired skill level in this expanding specialty
within the field of respiratory care.
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Our Clinician’s
Guide to PAP Adherence is a web-based continuing education
program designed to bring you up-to-speed on the latest scientific
evidence on improving your patients’ compliance with positive
airway pressure therapy. The program is free to AARC members and carries
4.0 hours of CRCE credit.
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Our online COPD
Educator Course offers a complete tutorial on how to
care for patients with the most common condition found in pulmonary
rehabilitation programs, and one of our newest courses, Emerging
Roles for the Respiratory Therapist in Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency,
covers the hereditary form of the condition. You can earn 10.0 CRCEs
with the COPD Educator Course and 3.0 with the Alpha-1 course.
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Our Clinical
Practice Guideline on Pulmonary Rehabilitation outlines
the key components to be considered when developing these life-extending
programs, and our Position
Statement on Pulmonary Rehabilitation provides a short
and to-the-point overview of what such a program should entail.
We also have the tools you need to get out into your communities and
raise awareness of these major areas of health concern. Check out our
Local
Public Relations is Effective Public Relations: A PR Guidebook for Respiratory
Therapists for tips on working with your local media on a
story about sleep and/or pulmonary rehabilitation this month.
Not sure how to get in touch with your local media? We have that covered
too! Just go to our Media
Guide search page to find contact information for media outlets
in your zip code or state. You can also search by name of the media organization.
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