Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

When individuals have illnesses affecting their lungs, the build-up of excessive mucous can make it hard to breath. For individuals struggling to clear this mucous, airway suctioning is one technique that can be used by health care professionals, such as physical therapists, to make breathing easier. Suctioning uses a system similar to a small vacuum to remove mucous and clear the airways. Unfortunately, this technique can be dangerous when done incorrectly. In order to ensure this technique is done safely and effectively, it is important that health care professionals are tested on their ability to perform this technique properly. A number of tools have been previously developed to help evaluate the ability of health care providers to perform suctioning in a competent manner, however, these tools were designed mainly for use with nurses and lack relevance to current physical therapy practice. Thus, the objective of this project was to develop a new tool to assess physical therapists' competency related to the performance of airway suctioning. This project is important because the proper application of airway suctioning can help a wide variety of individuals with serious lung related illnesses to experience higher quality health care and to breathe easier.