§ 38-3205 — Respiratory care, defined

Respiratory care means the health specialty responsible for the treatment, management, diagnostic testing, and care of patients with deficiencies and abnormalities associated with the cardiopulmonary system. Respiratory care is not limited to a hospital setting and includes the therapeutic and diagnostic management and maintenance of medical gases, administering apparatus, humidification and aerosols, ventilatory management, postural drainage, chest physiotherapy and breathing exercises, cardiopulmonary resuscitation and rehabilitation, and maintenance and insertion of lines, drains, and artificial and nonartificial airways without cutting tissues. Respiratory care also includes the administration of all pharmacologic, diagnostic, and therapeutic agents for the treatment and diagnosis of cardiopulmonary disease for which the respiratory care practitioner has been professionally trained or has obtained advance education or certification, including specific testing techniques employed in respiratory care to assist in diagnosis, monitoring, treatment, and research of how specific cardiopulmonary disease affects the patient. Such techniques include management of ventilatory volumes, pressures, and flows, measurement of physiologic partial pressures, pulmonary function testing, hemodynamic insertion of lines, and related physiological monitoring of the cardiopulmonary system.

Legislative History

Source: Laws 2007, LB463, § 1071; Laws 2022, LB752, § 24.