Competency Requirements for the Provision of Respiratory Therapy Services

The complexities of respiratory therapy are such that the public is at risk of injury, and health care institutions are at risk of liability when respiratory therapy is provided by inadequately educated and unqualified health care providers rather than by practitioners appropriately educated in the specialty of Respiratory Therapy.

All health care practitioners providing respiratory therapy services to patients, regardless of the care setting and patient demographics, shall successfully complete formal training and demonstrate initial competence prior to assuming those duties. This formal training and demonstration of competence shall be required of any health care provider regardless of credential, degree, or license.

Formal training is defined as a supervised, deliberate, and systematic educational activity in the affective, psychomotor and cognitive domains. It is intended to develop new proficiencies with an application in mind, and is presented with attention to needs, objectives, activities and a defined method of evaluation.

The training shall be approved by a local, regional or national accrediting entity. In the allied health fields, this training includes supervised pre-clinical (didactic and laboratory) and clinical activities, as well as documentation of competence through tests determined to be valid and reliable. The qualifications of the faculty providing this training shall be documented and also meet accreditation standards.

Effective 11/98
Revised 12/08