Respiratory Care Residency Program Assists With Advancement in Clinical Practice Skills

Background: COVID-19 changed the way that respiratory care students were trained and how they gained clinical experience. With the pandemic sometimes interfering with clinical rotations, respiratory care students often did not have the opportunity to develop the knowledge and experience required to be safely enter practice. It became imperative for healthcare systems to improve clinical onboarding to support these new respiratory therapists (RTs). To address this need, a multi-campus health system implemented a Respiratory Care Residency Program (RCRP) with the goal of enhance onboarding, education, and improving the standard of care given by a newly graduated RTs. Methods: The program duration was 6 months and included a streamlined clinical based orientation with a dedicated preceptor, didactic learning, evidence-based practice plan, and incorporated simulation. This project received approval by the organization’s IRB. The RCRP covered information on all patient populations, ages, and types. A curriculum was created with campus leaders and educators to ensure different clinical and professional gaps were addressed. The didactic learning and simulation focused on different respiratory skills such as patient assessment, critical thinking, advanced life support for adults and neonates, inhaled nitric oxide (iNO) administration, noninvasive and invasive ventilator set up, specialty modes, and more. The residents were given anonymous questionnaires throughout the program to assess satisfaction, comfort, and confidence levels. Results: There was an increase in the overall factor score measures for role confidence, clinical skills and knowledge-based topics. Communication and leadership saw an increase at 12.59%, followed by overall role confidence at 4.5%. Participants reported an increase in most clinical skills, with the largest increases in iNO administration (32.34%), laryngectomy (20.22%), and assist with bronchoscopy (15.83%). Conclusions: The collected responses showed increase in a wide range of clinical skills and other human skills. The retrospective data obtained in this project suggests these programs are effective in supporting transition to practice and improving patient care by adding value to the training, overall well-being, and retention of the newly graduated RT. Respiratory care residency programs could be modelled after the wide array of data available for nursing residency programs to allow for benchmarking and information sharing.