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Palliative care and the respiratory therapist

By Shawna Strickland posted 06-25-2013 16:32

  
Today, we had a webcast with Lorraine Bertuola that focused on terminal weaning. During the course of the webcast, our topic shifted a bit and we had a bit of a conversation about palliative care. One of the questions posed to the group was if the participants knew whether or not their facility had a palliative care service/committee. About 1/3 of the respondents said no. I'm not sure if that means that there is no palliative care service at their respective facilities or if they just don't know the status of that committee. In any case, it seems almost elementary that the respiratory therapist should be included on these committees or consult services and, in many cases, we are not. Some facilities are changing this practice and some respiratory therapists would like to encourage this change but don't know how. If you're interested in continuing the conversation about palliative care and the role of the respiratory therapist, I encourage you to join us in the Palliative Care Roundtable (free group on AARConnect). Perhaps we can brainstorm ways to integrate respiratory therapists into palliative care initiatives across the US and provide maximum benefit to our patients.
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07-03-2013 01:55

Thanks for the Blog started, Shawna. I just joined the roundtable and look forward to the professional collaboration.