QCC’s Respiratory Care Program Receives Credentialing Success Award

WORCESTER, MA— July 27, 2021—Quinsigamond Community College’s Respiratory Care Program has received the distinguished Registered Respiratory Therapist (RRT) Credentialing Success Award from the Commission on Accreditation for Respiratory Care (CoARC). The College has joined a select group of programs that received this national recognition based on a high-level performance of key accreditation metrics.

“The students of QCC have labored diligently to strive for excellence in this respected profession by earning the highly-desirable, Registered Respiratory Therapist credential. I am thrilled with their success and demonstration of skillfulness in their chosen profession,” said Professor Emerita Karen Kaletski Dufault.

This award is presented as part of CoARC’s continued efforts to value the RRT credential as a standard of professional achievement. The CoARC views the RRT credential as a measure of a program’s success in inspiring its graduates to achieve their highest educational and professional aspirations.

To earn this prestigious award, programs were required to have three or more years of outcome data, hold accreditation without a progress report, document RRT credentialing success of 90% or above, and meet or exceed core thresholds for the Therapist Multiple Choice (TMC) examination high cut score and retention. QCC had a 3-year (2017 – 2019) average of 100% of students who achieved the high cut score.  The CoARC threshold for retention is 70% and QCC had a 96% retention rate for the same 3-year average (2017-2019). 

“This is the first time that the program has achieved this recognition and it could not have been done without the leadership of Karen Dufault, who was the previous program coordinator/director until she retired in 2020,”said Assistant Professor of Respiratory Care, Keith Hirst.

He added that Amy Hogan, current director of clinical education, along with all the current and past clinical instructors, clinical sites, and Advisory Board members, QCC administration, and graduates of the program also played a large role in this award. 

“Over this same time frame we had 100% job placement rate within six months of graduation, as well as 100% employer and graduate satisfaction rates,” Mr. Hirst said.

To learn more visit QCC’s Respiratory Care Program.

For more information about QCC, contact Josh Martin, Director of Institutional Communications at 508.854.7513 or jmartin [at] qcc.mass.edu