AARC Grants CRCE Credit for Vent Alarm Webinar

March 5, 2014

AARC Associate Executive Director-Education Shawna Strickland, PhD, RRT-NPS, AE-C, FAARC, will be one of the speakers along with AARC member Matthew Trojanowski, MS, RRT, during a one-hour webinar on ventilator alarm safety on March 25.

Hosted by the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI), the session is designed for members of the multidisciplinary team, and the AARC is granting CRCE credit to respiratory therapists who attend.

“Both the AARC and AAMI have a dedication to patient safety,” says Dr. Strickland. “Ventilator alarms are a huge issue and this project is to educate RTs and RNs on the issues.”

The AARC will be taking part in a new organization formed by the AAMI Foundation’s Healthcare Technology Safety Institute to address alarm safety as well. The National Coalition for Alarm Management will bring key stakeholders from the Joint Commission, FDA, National Patient Safety Foundation, health care professional organizations, and industry together with 20 hospitals at the cutting edge of alarm safety to facilitate the sharing of resources.

The coalition will hold its first meeting at the end of April to begin work on early and long-term deliverables aimed at improving alarm management nationwide.

You can read more about alarm safety and how RTs responded to a recent survey on alarms in this article beginning on page 42 of your Nov. 2013 edition of AARC Times.