Ozarks Technical Community College’s respiratory therapy program received the 2015 Distinguished Registered Respiratory Therapy Credentialing Success Award from CoARC, the Commission on Accreditation for Respiratory Care. CoARC created the award to honor respiratory therapy programs that achieve high academic outcome measurements.

To meet the award’s criteria, respiratory therapy programs had to achieve the following objectives:
• Possess three or more years of outcomes data.
• Hold accreditation without a progress report.
• Document RRT credentialing success at 90 percent or more.
• Meet or exceed CoARC thresholds for CRT credentialing success, attrition and job placement.

In 2014, approximately 60 of 440 programs nationwide met this criteria. OTC’s respiratory therapy program is the only associate-level program in the country to receive the Distinguished RRT Credentialing Success Award all five years it has been awarded. The complete list of award recipients is located here.

“OTC’s respiratory therapy program has presented nearly 40 papers at this conference from the research conducted by our students on campus,” said Aaron Light, respiratory therapy program coordinator. “These research opportunities are rare for associate-level programs, and we’re proud to provide our students with these opportunities that lead to their success in the classroom and beyond.”

To learn more about OTC’s respiratory therapy program, please contact Aaron Light at lighta@otc.edu or 417-447-8824.