You’ll find a wealth of free online resources for CRCE here. CRCE credits, or Continuing Respiratory Care Education credits, are the AARC approved credits needed by respiratory therapists in order to renew our licenses. As students, these sites can help you learn more and give you the added edge you’ll need to get a job once you graduate. Hiring managers love to hear that you’re keeping on top of new technology and other information in your field.
If your employer hospital or school offers PALS (Pediatric Advanced Life Support), ACLS (Advanced Cardiac Life Support) or NRP (Neonatal Resuscitation Program) classes, take advantage of them. Each of these classes can earn you up to 12 CRCE. Many states only allow you to take credit for ONE of these courses per renewal period, though. (This shouldn’t discourage you from taking all three of them as soon as possible, though. These courses can give you a wealth of additional knowledge and will only make you more employable wherever you go.)
**Always check with your state board regarding requirements for continuing education. Many states only allow a certain amount of online education credits and the rest must be from live seminars. **
First and foremost, the AARC offers an amazing amount of free or low-cost CRCE to their members. Membership does cost, but we recommend that every respiratory therapist and respiratory student should become a member of the AARC. With each membership you get access to amazing benefits and publications. With specialty membership add-ons you can keep up to date on your particular career focus in areas such as home care, asthma education or critical care. There is a special student membership which is offered at a discounted price. Many schools offer a group discount as well. Ask your program director about your options. Some state societies will buy packs of memberships as well in order to offer their members better deals.
Smith’s Medical offers free CRCE credits in various areas. These are online only.
Carefusion’s Safety and Clinical Excellence program offers various webinars and case studies free online. There is a search area on the right of the page that allows you to search specifically for respiratory therapy-related offerings. The site isn’t as easily navigable, but if you take some time, you’ll find a lot of great resources.
The ResMed e-Learning Academy offers various free CRCE programs. You have to create an account, but it’s worth it.
VesselHealth’s online webinars help educate nurses and therapists on “best practices for vascular and arterial access, selection and insertion.”
Saxe Communications offers a wonderful wealth of CRCE through their various publications. You can sign up on their mailing list to get the actual hard copies in the mail, but you can get every one of their publications online for free as well, so why waste paper? Their various publications are geared toward nurses and respiratory therapists, but a couple only offer CE for nurses, so be sure to take a look at the information below each publication’s links. The Critical Decisions publication is for both therapists and nurses.
Passy Muir offers a number of free CRCE credits. You must create an account, but again, it’s worth it. Note: Passy Muir only submits CRCE information to the AARC quarterly, so you may not see your credits posted to your member number for up to three months. They do, however, have certificates with course numbers available for immediate download once a course is completed. All of their courses are AARC approved for CRCE except for the “Ventilator Basics for the Non-Respiratory Therapist.”
ICON (Intensive Care Online) is a Draeger’s online education and support page. If your hospital has contracted with Draeger on any equipment, you will have access to the page and all of it’s continuing education content. There are monthly live webinars along with archived education. All of them offer AARC approved credit.
**Please double check that the programs you participate in are CRCE approved if that is what your state requires for license renewal. We’ve done our best to offer only CRCE approved sites, but we can’t guarantee that things haven’t changed since these links were posted. **