AARC.org

Learn more...

In the News

Best Practices Community Launched

Bookmark and Share

May 22, 2013

AARC is launching a COPD Practices repository, a community on AARConnect for you to share information and documents.

With the looming implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the readmissions penalties and payment reductions expected to challenge this profession, a member-to-member best practices community will serve as a clearinghouse for ideas.

“The AARC Board hopes that members will freely share implemented programs and outcomes that showcase the respiratory therapist in the untraditional roles of disease manager, patient educator and discharge planner,” said George Gaebler, president of the AARC. “This repository of best practices will better position the respiratory therapist to add meaningful value in their respective organization.”

“Our profession is in a unique position to make a positive difference in patient care outcomes,” said Doug Laher, AARC associate executive director who is overseeing the project. “By better preparing our patients to self-manage their condition, we should expect to see fewer readmissions to the hospital.”

Laher says that these best practice ideas may take the form of an inpatient or outpatient protocol, COPD admission/readmission order sets, medication protocols, and more. Once these are collected, they will be vetted and made available to AARC members from which to design their own programs.

We are inviting submissions at this time, using the template above. To participate in the COPD Best Practices community, do the following:

  1. Navigate to the COPD Best Practices Community on AARConnect.
  2. Click the Join button
  3. Set your email preferences. (We suggest that “real time” emails will give you the best interaction and communications with the community)
  4. Prepare to submit your idea or just participate in discussions on that community.

Because all submissions are being vetted before they are posted, expect that there may be a delay between submission and posting. Your discussion comments may also be delayed for a short time due to this community configuration.