{"id":2695,"date":"2014-02-10T13:01:14","date_gmt":"2014-02-10T18:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crto.on.ca\/?p=2695"},"modified":"2014-04-02T11:45:22","modified_gmt":"2014-04-02T15:45:22","slug":"new-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crto.on.ca\/fr\/members-blog\/new-post\/","title":{"rendered":"Emerging RT Practice"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"BalanceThis year marks 20 years that RTs have been regulated health care professionals in Ontario, and some of you, like me, can trace your practice back even further than that.\u00a0 An awful lot has changed in that time – and I anticipate that there are more changes yet to come.\u00a0 Twenty years ago, being an RT was pretty straight forward\u2026with ventilator\/airway management, oxygen therapy, bronchodilator treatment and cardiac\/respiratory arrests making up a good chunk of what we did.\u00a0 But now RTs do so much more.\u00a0 Some are being crossed-trained with nursing in emerg, ICU, and on rapid response and neonatal transport teams.\u00a0 We\u2019re also receiving delegation for procedures that take us well \u201cbelow the diaphragm\u201d and to the outer limits of our scope of practice, which according to the Respiratory Therapy Act<\/i> (RTA<\/i>) is: \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

The practice of respiratory therapy is the providing of oxygen therapy, cardio-respiratory equipment monitoring and the assessment and treatment of cardio-respiratory and associated disorders to maintain or restore ventilation. <\/i>(RTA, <\/i>1991, s.2)<\/p>\r\n

To survive and sustain itself, our health care system needs to find new ways to provide optimal patient care by making the best possible use of our finite human and financial resources.\u00a0\u00a0 Everyone in health care is being asked to do more with less and RTs are now taking on roles never conceived of when the RTA <\/i>was drafted.\u00a0 All of this is being done to provide patients with access to the care they need, but it can make it difficult to determine if these tasks are still within the respiratory therapy scope of practice of. \u00a0For example, administering Ventolin via inhalation in emerg is a core practice clearly within the RT scope of practice – you don\u2019t even need to think about that one.\u00a0 Other tasks, such as giving IV Fentanyl for procedural sedation, sit at the outside edges of our scope.\u00a0 As an RT, you can potentially do these things but it first requires some careful consideration.<\/p>\r\n

Our scope of practice is not just derived from the RTA<\/i> or any other single element.\u00a0 The professional scope of Respiratory Therapy also comes from our education, our experience and from our practice settings.\u00a0 Therefore\u00a0 if we begin with the end in mind – \u00a0the provision of safe, competent and ethical patient-centred care- then the overriding issue becomes not \u201ccan I do that?\u201d but rather \u201cshould I do that?\u201d\u00a0 The following are some factors to consider when asking yourself that question:<\/p>\r\n