My Turn

From time to time BRPT invites a "guest blogger" to contribute a short article in this space. The opinions, representations and statements made within a "guest" article are those of the author and should not be construed as statements made on behalf of BRPT. Copyright remains with the author.

September 6, 2011

My Turn
By Bonnie Robertson, AAHA, CRT, RPSGT

The Indiana Society of Sleep Professionals held their annual symposium in Fishers, Indiana on August 18th and 19th. It was an excellent meeting with several speakers discussing the future of sleep medicine and the challenges presented by changes in the field.

One of the speakers, Mr. Bruce Blehart, is the Director of Health Policy and Government Relations for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM). He was asked to address the “State of Sleep Medicine” by the conference organizers.

Mr. Blehart’s presentation covered several aspects including local coverage determination (LCD) criteria for polysomnography in hospitals, outside of lab testing, and IDTFs. The LCD for the state of Indiana directly refers to the BRPT and the RPSGT credential in its language, which he noted. Mr. Blehart also discussed state statutory language for sleep technologists and covered the details surrounding practice acts in several states.

As the final piece of his presentation, Mr. Blehart presented information regarding the development of a new ABSM sleep technologist competency assessment examination. He said that “center managers” do not think the RPSGT credential indicates a technologist can perform the standard tasks necessary in a sleep lab. This “information” was also included in his slides. He emphasized that the “historically low pass rate” has completely stifled growth of education in the field. He stated that the AASM developed the curriculum for the educational CoA PSG programs. He also implied that the removal of pediatrics and MSLTs from the BRPT exam was done to increase the pass rate. This is simply not true.

Mr. Blehart stated several times during his presentation that the BRPT removed the 2011 pass rates from their website and he assumes that it was done because the pass rates must be even lower than previous years and the BRPT does not want anyone to know that. Again, this is simply not true. In fact, the year-to-date pass rate for the RPSGT exam through July 2011 was 63%.

He went on to state that the BRPT has always been “wagged by the tail” in their decision-making process and that the ABSM will be “controlling the wagging” by asking employers what they want instead of using nationally recognized standards for accrediting bodies.

And finally, Mr. Blehart equated the ABSM to the NBRC.

As a past president of the BRPT, I took the opportunity to speak at the end of Mr. Blehart’s presentation. Some of the information he presented was one-sided, incomplete, and not entirely factual.

I addressed the group of 200 sleep technologists who are predominantly RPSGTs. I spoke of the long history of the BRPT, the rigorous standards employed by the BRPT for exam development and exam delivery. I underscored BRPT’s commitment to the field through its long-standing support of the CoA PSG and even stipulated that I had personally chaired the syllabus committee, a group of very hard-working sleep technologists, who volunteered countless hours of time to develop a curriculum that fairly and accurately represented the field of sleep medicine technology and used the BRPT blueprint to do so. I talked about the countless number of volunteers and hours of labor done by those volunteers over the years to keep the exam legally viable and defensible. I encouraged everyone to visit the BRPT website to make their own decisions about the situation as it currently stands.

And I definitely corrected Mr. Blehart’s comparison of the NBRC and the ABSM. The NBRC was started by respiratory therapists and is still governed by respiratory therapists. The ABSM is not governed by sleep technologists. The true equivalent would be the BRPT and the NBRC.

The conference was attended by a very large number of RPSGTs many of whom approached me afterwards to thank me for standing up for their credential. They worked very hard to earn the credential and they felt a huge sense of pride and accomplishment when they passed the RPSGT exam. They, without exception, expressed concerns that another credential in the field will cause confusion by employers and regulatory bodies, derision in the field, and degradation of their accomplishments. To these committed, hard working RPSGTs, I say: the RPSGT credential is and will remain the highest level of achievement in sleep technology. The gold standard will continue to shine.