Abstract
Background:
Evidenced-based medicine is imperative to improving patient outcomes throughout the field of medicine. With respiratory care (RC) being such a technology-driven profession, advancing provider knowledge related to research skills is paramount.1,2 Our Respiratory Care Department (RCD) aimed to increase respiratory therapist (RT) involvement in research by creating an RC Research Task Force (RTF).
Methods:
Bylaws were written for an RC RTF in November 2018, and an interest meeting was held in December 2018. Twenty-two RTs (department total 107 RTs) attended the interest meeting. Seventeen RTs joined the RTF in January 2019 and meetings began. All members were required to complete CITI Program training (for patient and animal research) and IRBNet training offered through our organization and become an American Association for Respiratory Care (AARC) and Delaware Society for Respiratory Care (DSRC) member. Initially, meetings were once monthly (for three months) and then transitioned to quarterly meetings. The first three months focused on education and included CITI training, IRB applications, literature searches, and research basics. Subsequent meetings were used to brainstorm research ideas, remove barriers, and continue education.
Results:
By using an RC RTF, our department was able to increase publications from four in 2018 to nine in 2019. The effect from these publications within our department resulted in two changes to patient care practices in 2018 and six changes in 2019. CITI Training increased from six RTs in 2018 to 19 in 2019. Additionally, the RCD RTF increased involvement in animal studies from zero to one in 2018 to 2019, respectively (Fig. 1). These results stemmed from the addition of approximately 250 hours of nonproductive time within our RCD in 2019.
Conclusions:
Many RTs who study at an undergraduate level do not receive extensive research training even though the impact of such training is necessary to contribute to research within the field of RC. By creating and implementing an RC RTF within our RCD, we were able to increase research contributions, increase practice changes driven by original research, and capture RT staff interested in research to increase research engagement.
Figure 1. Comparison of RCD RTF impact from 2019 to the year prior.
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