Respiratory Care

The Department of Respiratory Care, a division of Patient Care Services, functions under the medical direction of the chief of pulmonary/critical care medicine and the administrative direction of the director of patient care services. We are a centralized department in the hospital, available 24 hours a day, whose primary concentration of coverage is in the adult and neonatal intensive care units, intermediate care areas, the emergency response team and medical/surgical nursing floors.

The Respiratory Care Department:

• Employs over 40 licensed therapists
• Therapists actively participate in the multi-disciplinary health care team approach to quality patient care.
• Our scope of practice encompasses patients of all ages with both acute and chronic pulmonary dysfunction or disease.
• The respiratory care practitioner’s expertise is emergency response, ventilation management, evaluation and assessment, therapeutic treatment and diagnostic testing.
• Emphasize and provide education to patients and their families, focusing on health promotion and health maintenance, designed to optimize each individual’s quality of life.

Our goal is to exceed patient expectations by providing both immediate assistance and by helping to achieve the outcomes of the multidisciplinary care plan.

Respiratory Care coordinates the cardiopulmonary resuscitation/basic life support community training program based at the hospital.