The President plus the CEO of the NBRC along with its lead marketing consultant will be on a panel describing promotional activities in which trustees and staff have been recently engaged. Details about the program in which renewing credential-holders could allocate a portion of their fee to a respiratory health promotion or patient advocacy group will be described. The session will cover the “MoreRTs” campaign, Choose to Give campaign, a new scholarship for each education program, plus future plans to promote the profession.

At the conclusion of this lecture, participants will be able to apply the core competencies of IPE to the clinical education setting in order to foster the implementation of effective team-based care.

The COVID-19 Pandemic has brought many changes and challenges to the health care system. Retirements by Baby Boomers, burnout, staff resignations, and falling college enrollments are contributing to the national shortage of RTs greater than what has ever been seen before. Listen to a panel of respiratory care leaders about how we got here, what we are doing to deal with the staffing shortages, and what they are doing to ensure they have enough staff to safely care for patients in the future.

The presentation provides an overview of the community of inquiry (COI) three presences: cognitive, social, and teaching. Examples of best practices are presented to demonstrate a practical approach for implementing COI instructional strategies to create a learning environment that facilitates deep and meaningful learning experiences. The COI framework is an effective strategy for improving the quality of student learning, engagement, and motivation in the online learning environment.

All states and administrative leaders could benefit from an RT workforce supply and demand report for strategic planning, as well as,as defining and promoting the profession. This session reviews the data collection process, report outcomes, and associated action plans based on the 2021 OSRC Workforce Survey. Current RT vacancy rates projected future needs and retirements defined demand. Statewide COARC reports confirmed RT graduate supply. This report exposed the need for RT student recruitment and allowed the OSRC to engage statewide agencies and organizations in the effort.

Respiratory therapy educational programs work hard to recruit and retain qualified students into respiratory care programs. This effort starts with spreading awareness about the profession. A common source of information for many prospective students is social media. Attendees will learn the tools for understanding how to leverage the power of social media to attract program applicants. Participants will also understand how social media can be used to provide information to prospective students and develop a social media communications strategy to attract program applicants.

The 2021 OSRC Workforce survey to determine RT workforce and demand indicated an acute shortage of respiratory care professionals to fill vacant positions and meet the expected increase in demand over the next 3–5 years. This session reviews creative and innovative collaborative efforts between respiratory care programs and health care organizations to improve the recruitment and retention of staff RRTs in Ohio.

The 2021 OSRC Workforce survey to determine RT workforce and demand indicated a lack of new RTs entering the field despite growing demand. Respondents to the survey indicated “not enough qualified graduates from local programs” as one of the most common and important issues facing hiring managers. CoARC accredited degree entry programs in Ohio average approximately 60% of the 565-student capacity. During this lecture, the speaker will present creative and innovative collaborative efforts between communities, schools, and health care organizations to increase the number of qualified students enrolling in Ohio respiratory care programs. Strategies to improve recruitment and retention of qualified students into respiratory care programs will be discussed.

Early experience during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and predictive modeling indicate that the need for respiratory therapists (RTs) will exceed the current supply (Hester, Cartwright & Hawkins, 2020). A new generation of respiratory therapists (RTs) entering health care today poses a new challenge for recruitment and retention. The baby boomer leaders of today face a delicate balance to meet the new demands of the Generation-Y (Millennial) workforce, along with the demands of an aging patient population (Piper, 2008). At stake is safety, quality, and services to our next generation of patients if we are not able to find reasonable and viable solutions to the retention of our next generation workforce.

As educators, we pour our hearts and souls into teaching the future of our profession everything they need to know so that they can be the best respiratory therapists they are capable of being. However, have we prepared them to be the best candidates when interviewing for a job? Interviewing can be daunting, but like any other skill, the only way to become better is to learn the basics, prepare, and then practice. This presentation will describe the implementation of a role-play mock interview project developed to enhance the interviewing skills of students, both as the interviewer and interviewee.

COVID, declining RT program student enrollment and RRTs accepting travel positions have all contributed to a national shortage of RTs to staff hospitals. Join the presenter as she shares details regarding two, new positions in her corporation’s 23 acute care hospitals to assure safe and timely Respiratory Clinical Service coverage for patients. She will share job descriptions, a crosswalk of regulatory compliant clinical and non-clinical delegated duties, a delegation “tree” and an overview of success and challenges of these currently creative but controversial positions. Join her to learn how to work with your state’s licensing agency and the national pandemic waiver to assure regulatory compliance.