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March is the Month for Sleep and Pulmonary Rehab

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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—

  • 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.

  • 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.)

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.